Machinist feedback from long time Physical Ranged DPS player

Machinist feels great to play this expansion in a single target scenario, everything flows really well together but there are still issues with how the job works, first of all, there is no reason hypercharge needs the "20 potency increase on single target skills" just give HB and BS a 20 potency increase and make hypercharge and heat blast unlock at the same level. The other issue with current MCH is its lack of any damage whatsoever, there is no reason why a selfish dps should be on the bottom when it comes to damage within its role, BLM outdamages RDM an SMN, VPR and SAM outdamage every other melee, why wont MCH outdamage BRD and DNC?

As for AOE there are a lot of issues with how the job works such as:
-Flamethrower is virtually useless
-Auto Crossbow is almost always useless
-No way to spend battery for AOE
-Wildfire is useless for AOE

For these i propose the following changes:
Rework flamethrower into a ground DOT like doton or salted earth.
Make auto crossbow reduce DC and CM cooldown like blazing shot.
Make some of the automaton queen and rook autoturret's attacks AOE or add the bishop turret and an upgrade back into the game.
Make wildfire an AOE attack.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sparkling_Aria

why wont MCH outdamage BRD and DNC?

---

Are you talking about rdps? Because MCH outdamage BRD/DNC, if we are talking about adps or ndps

Selfish DPS can not beat rdps in any role. Only exemption is SMN and RDM, because they have that raise tax.

lets look at max percentile rdps parses in m1s

PCT 31.5k, BLM 29,6K
DRG 30,9k, SAM 29,1k
BRD 28,9k, MCH 25,5k
AST 18,5k, WHM 16,2K
SCH 18k, SGE 16k

still should be on par with the other selfish dps's like black mage and samurai. its damaged being balanced around the other phys is stupid. the whole role is stupid tbh. low damage for "support" even though the role hasn't felt supportive since stormblood. range tax is also a meme when melee really doesn't have it that much harder

I don't think MCH feels great to play in single player at all personally. Tastes and all I guess.

I agree, MCH current iteration is the best in my opinion but it suffers from the ShB rework leftovers.

Flamethrower should be more, make it a follow-up to Drill&Bioblaster or a heat spender in some form.
The Automaton Queen doesn't feel good, its AI is lacking and can easily miss meaningfull hit in multi target scenario.
ACB and Wildfire in AOEs...

The main problem is the physical ranged role as a whole.
My choice of DPS are VPR, RPR and MCH, since I can only gear one at a time, why would I ever choose MCH over the VPR or RPR?
MCH isn't a "pure DPS", it's only a pure DPS within the p.ranged role but not in the whole DPS ecosystem.

MCHs AoE has been a point of contention for years and its more an unwillingness to change than anything else.

Wildfire being AoE would be fantastic, would get slapped with a heavy drop-off, but would be worth using. In PvP, Wildfire is already an AoE, so the work is pretty much done for them, but they won't adopt this for PvE.
Flamethrower is technically a gain, but it feels so anemic and unsatisfying to use, to the point people don't even realize that it is worth using. There are a myriad of ways to improve the skill that I and many others have suggested, but strangely, despite the feedback, its never been touched since the ShB rework.
In dungeons, used to be you'd just build battery on the way to the boss room and start the fight with 100 battery, hence why I didn't think we really needed an AoE battery spender, but with the Chain Saw follow up, we generate so much battery per minute that I think they should add Bishop back as an option, again, already in PvP, works done.
As for Auto Crossbow, this one is unfortunate and the obvious solution is to give it the same properties as Blaze Shot where it resets GCDs, or just give it a good potency buff.

As for MCHs damage, honestly, all the phys ranged could use a looking over, but I've always said that a selfish phys ranged was always a balancing nightmare because by virtue of its role, it will never do comparable damage to the other selfish jobs. I think MCH should have kept old Hypercharge (vulnerablity debuff on the target) and kept its identity as a debuffer. I find MCH still fun to play, but there are a lot of improvements that can be done, which annoyingly, have already been done for PvP.

For the AoE automaton I find it appaling that it's still not in the game.

They already have the design for the AoE turret. All they need to do is a "King" which works like the current queen but for AoE...
WildFire could easily be reworked to be an AoE. Would have 0 impact in raiding and who cares if MCH gets to do a bit more AoE in dungeon.

Flamethrower... I mean it's such a cool spell but I don't see how this could be included in the ST rotation at all.

The AoE could at least be ramped up and the damage could be shown.

Two changes I believe would help with it's ping related problems. Make wildfire last 15 seconds with the same max stacks and possibly 15 sec hypercharge. I don't know why its the only job that has not gotten this treatment yet could also just cap wildfire to 5 stacks and up the dmg to account for the lost stack