Would you prefer if Machinist focused more on the Gunner/Tools aspect?

Machinist is in a pretty weird spot right now in regards to theme, game-play, and power distribution. It's being pulled in three directions, a roboticist, gunner, and power tools expert. The main draw to its gameplay right now is its frenetic gunner phase with Hypercharge, and the spacing between these phases so that you can land your hard hitting tool abilities on cooldown. The roboticist aspect is sort of an afterthought compared to these two, the hypercharge phase actually delays battery generation and the robot can just be summoned whenever.

Despite this, the robot has been taking an increasingly large portion of Machinist's power budget. Unless you count Wildfire, MCH gets nothing to boost the Hypercharge phase from 70-90. Meanwhile all of the love and power seems to going into the robot, you get Automaton Queen at 80, and it's the Automaton Queen that gets MCH's new ultimate attack in Crowned Collider. Technically Chain Saw is the capstone ability, but it's just an AoE Air Anchor that doesn't do anymore damage than other tools and requires no buildup. In terms of rotation, Chain Saw, and any other tool in fact, actually delay the hypercharge phase in favor of generating battery for the robot, the robot that's still on 1 ogcd that contributes nothing to MCH's playstyle outside of dumping one slowly building resource.


Right now, Machinist is stuck in a rut. The thing most people seem to be gushing over this expansion is getting a shotgun for its AoE spam. Chain Saw and Crowned Collider are meh, and the rigid cooldown based nature of the Tools section also means that any other Tool would be more of the same while also stifling Gunner aspect even more. Meanwhile Reaper shows the better way to do Machinist where instead of battery leading into a glorified DoT, it unlocks the Reaper's "Hypercharge" phase and having most of your burst power in this phase feels really good. So I want to ask:


Would you rather they focus more on interplay between Gunner and Tool aspects instead than building up resource for a robot?

Failing that.

Is there any way you would make the robot a more engaging part of Machinist's playstyle?

honestly would love it if queen was always out instead of building towards it.

I'm fond of the idea of building up battery gauge so that we can summon and then pilot the Queen like an Iron Man suit. When in this suit we would not become a melee attacker but continue with new ranged abilities that culminate in a flashy but powerful beam cannon ability (shameless Gundam fan here). This could be a burst phase that last 20-30 seconds? I don't really like that we have no meaningful interaction with the Queen once it is out. We don't even change our rotation.

I don't have any problems with the Aetherotransformer abilities (Drill/Air Anchor/Chain saws), I think those are great design.
In a FPS, you often swap between guns to fit the situation or just for the power until you run out of ammos for that weapon.
Shotgun is a great addition for dungeons.

The EW MCH suffers the exact same problems as ShB MCH, the sadly half-baked rework:
-Heat gauge is boring and only used for 1 ability when job like Ninja, Samurai and especially Reaper have different uses for their gauge.
-Heat gauge is always in a weird spot where you need to waste heat or desynchronize Barrel Stabilizer and Wildfire.
-Flamethrower, Wildfire and Automaton Queen are press and forget.
-You can skip lv70 job quest and don't lose anything, as soon as you get Shotgun, Flamethrower is barely a gain.
-Filler 1 2 3 is boring and doesn't seems to fit in the MCH anymore.
-Heatblast spam. On timer.
-No utility and barebone damage.

Square Enix should first acknowledge these problems, especially the Automaton Queen and Flamethrower.
When Yoshida will clearly mention those two abilities and acknowledge they are not fulfilling, I will believe they read the forums and communicate between them.
Crown collider and untouched Hypercharge just makes me believe otherwise...
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I have a problem with the Automaton Queen and the battery gauge, a whole gauge entirely dedicated to a glorified dot.
I love robots but hate the Queen, I really wish it was a summon you command like Phoenix.
Giving the Queen the abilities will make it clunkier as expansion passes and we can already feel it.

Give us Ark, there is already Cruise Chaser in the game, reskin it, makes it change your 1 2 3 to robot command and voila, the robot is now engaging.
It doesn't attack by itself, it doesn't do anything by itself but wait for your commands for maximum efficiency.

Ark or power suit, both ideas are cool.
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I would do a lot on Heat, current it's build 50 heat for a heatblast spam phase.

First I'd either increase the heat cap to 200 or give Barrel Stabilizer a second charge, very important to restore a bit of flexibility.
Flamethrower reworked as a CD consuming XX heat that makes you enter a Enshroud like phase, same thing replaces your 1 2 3 to Flamethrower commands.
Or they could simply make it a CD that consumes heat, would still work like better.
Wildfire reworked to be just a bomb or simply removed, this cooldown is a HW/SB relic and is far from satisfying in ShB/EW.

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Utility wise, I would love to see mitigation/healing cooldowns like Corundum/Bloodwhetting/Intervention on ranged in the case they can't have damage "because mobility".
For example you could summon the Bishop, stick it to an ally, focusing on shielding said ally.
Rook could make a comeback in the form of healing, same concept as Bishop, stick it on an ally.

You could even give it some flavor and have the turrets instantly giving every remaining "tick" if the ally falls under 50% HP to act as an emergency tool.
Mitigation&Survival abilities should be the way of ranged.

Of course, that would be a lot of work and could qualify as a rework.
Right now, Automaton Queen, Flamethrower and Hypercharge are the critical issues. If they QoL Hypercharge in the following patches and Flamethrower or AQ for 7.0, it'll be enough to impress me.

I really enjoyed the uhm... multi turret MCH we had back in HW! Storm blood? I can't even remember anymore.So yes, I don't wanna be a glorified archer wid a flamethrower I wanna be a walking toolbox :3

Honestly I see tools and robot as the same niche of invention/machinery... That being what makes the Machinist a... well, machinist. Have these machines being hand-held tools or built constructs like the turrets or the robot.

I feel that the current balance is fine... It seems that the gun is used for rotational non-cooldown-bound actions for single target and AoE, while the "inventions" are saved for special moments or big hits.

I don't necessarily like how the machinery and robot works right now mechanically, but I'm pretty satisfied that thematically they are there to finally represent the signature of the job.

I would prefer more emphasis on gunner. While I don't mind the tools they are starting to feel gimmicky and more important than the guns. There was zero reason for chainsaw to be a thing besides nostalgia/homage bait as drill could of easily been made a line aoe.
I thought shotgun is another needless 'upgrade' and I actually like it less than spread shot, one part because it replaced my weapon again and another it hits like a wet noodle when hitting anything with a shotgun generally does massive damage, the animation is abrupt and jank, and the model is as expected.

I have slowly grown to dislike the queen. She is out of place with zero explanation on how we have a completely autonomous mech (thanks for abandoning class quests SE), Takes a rather large time investment to use and can often wiff attacks when an enemy decides it can't be damaged anymore, has a misleading tooltip indicating using it at max battery is better when the data proves otherwise, and is generally uninteresting gameplay. The original turrets were far better as they also provided buff opportunities when needed while being a superior dot that didn't require melee range.
Wildfire and the headlt guage are the worst part of the rotation, doesn't thematically fit anymore, and doesn't make practical sense (Shooting flames out if your gun doesn't build heat? lul) and is just that phase where you recharge OGCDs by pressing 1 button constantly.
Overall i prefer MCH to brd and DNC but that isn't a high bar to pass. I think they need to go back to Mustadio and takes notes. When do I get to break out a sniper rifle? Why bother with Leg Shot anymore? I would rather go back to gun casting at this stage.

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Originally Posted by Atamis

I think they need to go back to Mustadio and takes notes. When do I get to break out a sniper rifle?

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I would kill for a skill where you whip out a sniper rifle for a short cast powerful line AoE attack, as someone who's favourite spec from GW2 is Deadshot, I'd give an arm and a leg for any ounce of a sniper job in FFXIV.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VentVanitas

I would kill for a skill where you whip out a sniper rifle for a short cast powerful line AoE attack, as someone who's favourite spec from GW2 is Deadshot, I'd give an arm and a leg for any ounce of a sniper job in FFXIV.

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For SHB I was also expecting a sniper after seeing Mustadio.
We got the shotgun, why not a sniper rifle in the future? Maybe as a Hypercharge finisher?