Suggestion for improving Machinist Damage by redesigning Overload.

Since the general consensus among the MCH community is that our damage is too low for what we bring to a party, i have had an idea.
Some friends of mine who played during the 1.x era told me about a toggle that used to exist for Casters that would change their single target spells into AoEs.
This got me thinking about such a toggle for the Machinist.

The Heat Gauge has given some much needed gameplay elements to Machinists to further differentiate it from the Bard, But we can go further and give it something truly unique.

I thought perhaps we could replace Overload (I've yet to find a situation where that skill was even useful) with a Toggle skill while in Gauss Barrel, Tentatively named Dispersion Mode and Focused Mode.
Perhaps even tie the mode to the Turret you currently have placed.
Rook would enable Focused Mode while Bishop would switch it to Dispersion Mode.
No turret would leave our skills as they currently exist.

Focused Mode would increase potencies and alter Spread Shot into a single target "Five-fold" shot with a recast. (Theory being instead of swinging wide with the gun, aim low and go vertical)
Wildfire would get a duration increase, allowing for more shots to be counted.

Dispersion Mode would cause our single target shots to become conal or line AoEs or "hits target and all targets within Xy" with reduced potencies (Basically turns the gun into a shotgun) while altering Spread Shot to leave a short bleed DoT instead of simple spamming it.
Wildfire would also be applied to all nearby targets when used for its normal duration.

Also, make Hot Shot into an Attack Speed buff similar to Huton instead of 5% damage, Gauss Barrel is already handling our passive damage up.

Numbers would obviously be tuned to not be overpowered, And i intentionally left out any mention of specific numbers to avoid confusion.

Discuss?

I really like this idea about modes changing the effect of some skills, but if there's one thing that the whole 3.0 AST drama taught me, it's that devs don't want to change job mechanics during an expansion. Many people in the healers forum had a lot of interesting ideas back then, like letting AST use unwanted cards to deal damage or heal (yeah, lord and lady of crowns basically), but they just chose the easy way and buffed AST skills until the job became unbalanced.

That would leave MCH as it is for Trials (where adds are not even 5% of the fight); We have Rapid Fire to increase atk speed, it would conflict with that hot shot, for dungeons the dispersion shot would be fun to use.
Those changes would make MCH even harder, since you'd be altering your modes constantly specially in dungeons; In MY humble opinion they need to simplify rather than give us more, your changes do sound a little fun tho, however it seems like we'd still be weak, just even cooler; But just so my comment doesn't sound like a "no ur opinion is shiz." I'll add some of my ideas:
- Make Hot Shot into a strong DoT just like Lead Shot used to be, make it count towards Wild Fire.
- Increase the bonus dmg from Gauss Barrel to 15%
- Increase Rook Overload and Bishop Overload potency to something astronomical or at least reduce the "broken turret debuff" to 10 seconds or remove that shitty skill, its SHIT as it is right now. (but but you can use it to finish off bosses! u can use it in Lakshmir before she summons adds!11) then yeah, increase its potency so it will finally be WORTH using.
- Increase Dismantle to 10s (as it is right now, you can literally only use it for 1 skill or two autoattacks)
- Increase the magic/phys vulnerability debuff from hypercharge just so we have that "support" touch.
- Decrease Heated Shots heat gen. to 5 (because Cooldown dmg is quite shit for a skill we MUST in order to keep our DPS stable)]

Yes, none of that removes or adds new skills or are new ideas, we don't need new things because we just got it, we need to enhance what we have, IMO.

So I was trying to think of some QOL things that wouldn't change any of the skills of MCH that could make it appealing to more players that would be somewhat on par with AST changes throughout heavensward. I think QOL alone would help machinist a lot similar to AST.

1) Make the bullet UI glow red while Hot Shot buff is up. Let the circle UI for heatgage only glow red when overheated. This is nearly more important to track than bullets.
2) All your basic "shots" to upgrade automatically when triggered, reducing the number of buttons needed (we have like a million off-gcds, I have more button bloat on machinest now than I did before). This would make that element similar to that of pvp machinist as far as UI goes (but still follows pve rules for upgrade...aka not 100%).
3) Make Gauss Barrel Reapply after overheated cooldown. (again, one less button)
4) Turn the crit ability to apply all currently loaded bullets. This means up to the next three bullet consumers will crit.
5) Make the turret's follow you like a carby. ST turret shoots from range, and AOE turret gets into melee. This way they'll move with mob packs when the tank is dodging mechs and stuff.

Anyway, those are just my ideas.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Since the general consensus among the MCH community is that our damage is too low for what we bring to a party, i have had an idea.
Some friends of mine who played during the 1.x era told me about a toggle that used to exist for Casters that would change their single target spells into AoEs.
This got me thinking about such a toggle for the Machinist.

I thought perhaps we could replace Overload (I\\\\\\'ve yet to find a situation where that skill was even useful) with a Toggle skill while in Gauss Barrel, Tentatively named Dispersion Mode and Focused Mode.
Perhaps even tie the mode to the Turret you currently have placed.
Rook would enable Focused Mode while Bishop would switch it to Dispersion Mode.

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I love this idea! It would really give MCH a separate identity and just sounds fun in general too!

I feel like Wildfire should already be an AoE by default because it explodes. Build up damage on a single enemy, then have it explode and damage the target and surrounding enemies (as a bonus during trash pulls).

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Originally Posted by Xenohart

So I was trying to think of some QOL things that wouldn't change any of the skills of MCH that could make it appealing to more players that would be somewhat on par with AST changes throughout heavensward. I think QOL alone would help machinist a lot similar to AST.

1) Make the bullet UI glow red while Hot Shot buff is up. Let the circle UI for heatgage only glow red when overheated. This is nearly more important to track than bullets.
2) All your basic "shots" to upgrade automatically when triggered, reducing the number of buttons needed (we have like a million off-gcds, I have more button bloat on machinest now than I did before). This would make that element similar to that of pvp machinist as far as UI goes (but still follows pve rules for upgrade...aka not 100%).
3) Make Gauss Barrel Reapply after overheated cooldown. (again, one less button)
4) Turn the crit ability to apply all currently loaded bullets. This means up to the next three bullet consumers will crit.
5) Make the turret's follow you like a carby. ST turret shoots from range, and AOE turret gets into melee. This way they'll move with mob packs when the tank is dodging mechs and stuff.

Anyway, those are just my ideas.

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Some of these changes would drastically change MCH, actually.

1. I guess I'm not against it, but the job gauges were never designed to track every mechanic the job has.
2. This would be a huge change to how MCH performs. Their "basic" shots are not a simple 1-2-3 combo, especially when ammo comes into play. Take a look at this flowchart. In the opener at the top, when they first use Reload they do a 1-2-1 then a 3-2-3 during Wildfire. Even though ammo is a 25 potency bonus on any WS, it's best used on Split/Slug Shot for their procs. So after using Reload, the best use is Split to proc Slug, Slug to proc Clean, and then Split to re-proc Slug. If the "combo" was limited to a strict 1-2-3, then that unique aspect of the "basic" shots is completely gone.
3. One less button to press after overheating, sure, but the Gauss Barrel skill would probably still exist.
4. The problem is that limits Reassemble to only being used right after a Reload or the skill is wasted.
5. This is a personal thing, but I actually like how the turrets don't move once placed. Sure, it's probably an annoyance when the tank pulls mobs out of the Bishop AoE,
   but this is a problem that all jobs with ground-targeting skills have to suffer through (at least Bishop is on a 10s cooldown, unlike other skills).

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I feel like Wildfire should already be an AoE by default because it explodes. Build up damage on a single enemy, then have it explode and damage the target and surrounding enemies (as a bonus during trash pulls).

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That'd be nifty but I think that would end up putting undue pressure on the tank when some MCH rips agro because he's trying to shoot for a wildfire explosion in a large AoE pull.