Taking a look at MCH

After playing the job consistently since 7.1 released I want to try and cover as many points as possible on the job's design, where it succeeds, and where it fails or falls short. I have played at the highest level with top players, but I am far from having the skills of one (I'm bad), so if anybody that has actually managed to go higher with the job has any input to give, or things they want to correct, they're very welcome to do so.

Overview

The job is a ranged job meant to be played at the backline of the team, with limited defensive options and zero mobility. It is a hard hitter from afar, and probably currently packs the highest burst potency of all jobs, accompanied by a very solid AoE pressure if used properly. Being ranged, it relies a lot on getting a screen cover from its frontline melees and other supports, else making it very vulnerable to dives or melee counters.

Wildfire

The main source of damage is essentially designed around Wildfire, which can prove "relatively" flexible with the sequence of actions poured into it since it only cares about getting 4 shots (or less if triggered manually, but the effect is way poorer and with a bad detonation delay). While the vanilla burst is 2 shots into Full Metal Field in order to get the maximum amount of damage and AoE cleave when the FMF shot lands, immediately triggering WF, it is also possible to go for shorter sequences like a 2 hits scattergun + FMF, which can be pretty handy on single targets with nobody around them but less functional in a team engagement due to range constraints and the high possibility that scatter is only going to hit the target once. It is also possible as previously to line up the LB as the 4th shot to trigger WF, which can be extremely high potency after an Analyzed Chainsaw, but at high level the only real use of this is to punish players that are under Guard (else they're just going to block your shot).

Wildfire often turns into a gamble, both on the defender and the attacker (MCH): WF lasts a long time (8s), which means that if the defender guards early, their guard will expire before the end of WF, allowing the MCH to punish it and complete their burst once the player is out of guard, keeping the last hit for that occasion. It is possible to guard later before a 3rd hit, but if the MCH decides to go for a scatter FMF, they'll achieve this before WF is even at 5s remaining, so the defender will guard too late. On the side of the MCH it is very similar and the MCH needs to properly read what the target is doing with their Guard to play around it. I think this design is great, although at times you just end up pressing the final button thinking the target is doing nothing, and they defend precisely at this moment and counter everything. Unlucky I guess, it happens.

This directly means usually that the best defense against WF is just to LoS by running out of range or behind cover. Wildfire being a big red flag with a very noticeable sound and dynamite debuff icon, the way to get caught by this is being unable to move properly, being CCed, etc. This tends to be less of a problem below crystal level because players do not know how to defend against it or don't have the awareness to notice, much like they don't have the awareness to notice a MCH LB even though they have Guard up. Above that level though, it tends to turn the MCH WF burst into 1) a potential guard check or 2) a tool of punishment (post guard / CC).

Marksman's Spite

The LB stays as a punishing tool used to deal a big amount of damage to a target, most cookie cutter case being a target under guard and readied for team burst: pop LB at 1s remaining on Guard (it it possible to dramatically increase that damage with A. Chainsaw and potentially a WF as well, going above 60k damage alpha shot). The LB can also be used in conjunction with Anchor to ensure the target cannot Guard in time, which can punish targets that are half HP or two third depending on their job (but must be avoided if they have mitigating defensives up and running).

This keeps the LB full of tactical constraints, which is good design, but definitely hurts the effectiveness of the LB, especially since targets HP have gone up with 7.1. It is a very good team burst tool, but it cannot as reliably oneshot people as it used to, especially at high level where targets will most of the time have already followed their exit plan before they can get truly punished.

Overall in effectiveness though, I wouldn't rate it very high even if it remains relatively solid. Compared to LBs that charge as fast like Seiton or much faster like Purgation, this is a joke in terms of impact on a game overall especially past the constraints you have to play around to use it (it's not instant and doesn't stun like Purgation, it doesn't chainkill or guarantees kills like Seiton, etc).

Multitool cycle

The fact that the tools cycle one after another is an interesting twist of the job that in terms of design, makes the player have to adjust and play to the current tool available, which is pretty great, allows for skill expression, and makes the job more than just "press button 1 whenever needed, press button 2 for this, etc".

The main issue is that it makes the job inconsistent in application because Drill will not always be up when a target under guard presents itself, or Anchor will not always be up as crowd control usability on demand. Same for Chainsaw when it can be used for higher damage combinations.

Bioblaster currently is a joke and even back then when it was an AoE heavy, was already underwhelming when not hitting a full team of 4-5 people. Even if they added heavy back to it, I'd feel it would still feel unreliable as heck due to server positioning (the server always lies on the position of opponents) combined with the new hit registration delays.

Cooldown desynchronization

One of the main crippling issues of the job right now is that all its main burst tools are not aligned on their cooldowns, like for example it is on DNC (20s cycles). Wildfire is 24s, FMF is 30s, and 99% of the time you want WF and FMF to be used in conjunction anyway which puts WF on an effective 30s cooldown.

FMF being down to 30s is better than it used to be though since it now at least aligns a little better with Scatter (16s).

Those timers tend to make up for the wild burst damage that the job can field, but at the cost of very long wind downs between each burst spike, leaving the MCH not doing a lot in between.

Heat generation

This is still a meme, sorry. 5 stacks is a lot to reach especially when you have to use Blast Charge for it. It is also not controllable easily and on a timer, which ends up being a case where "if I overheat with it, then I overheat with it and that's great", but you can't really count on it especially in very hectic games.

The fact that it can stack with FMF is a cool little side effect though.

Blast Charge

Blast Charge is a joke, sorry not sorry. This filler even with a higher potency than it used to have, remains a filler with 6k potency. It would be okay but you have to actually cast it and walking casts are worst than actual casts because they're incredibly hard to cancel and generally will lock you in place, which tends to screw you over more than they actually gain you. They may look cool, but they're incredibly shitty at shooting yourself in the foot.

Having to rely on them to build up heat is very underwhelming especially since the heat generation system is already underwhelming in the first place.

Mobility

The job's identity is that it has the shittiest mobility in the pvp game, with BRD. It is a sniper, and wants to be used as a sniper, but with very cumbersome tools and setups to boot. This is fine at lower ranks, but once you truly reach games full of top players (meaning crystal rating over 2k), the fundamental dynamics tend to break that paradigm and you spend most of your time trying to stay ahead and fighting against your delayed kit and your lack of mobility, running after changing targets or bolting for cover. The job deals extremely badly with little skirmishes as well.

The mobility gained under overheat is good, and more controllable now that we have FMF, but it's definitely not going to fix the job main issues.

Defensive abilities

The job can only count on the Bishop autoturret to benefit from some modicum of defense, but this is generally better used on the contesting frontline/point to help the team, where it shines the most.

The job lost heavy on bioblaster which was a small help to shake off some attackers and only has Anchor remaining, which isn't always a guarantee to have at the ready. It can boast a potent burst to threaten an attacker if the team is ready to help, but otherwise, that's about it, beyond Scatter that will probably do you no real good anyway since the target can just sprint or dash back at you in an instant.

Virtually beyond Guard and Recuperate, the job is almost naked defensively, even worst than BRD that can at least count on Warden's and Repelling Shot on demand.

Conclusion

I feel that the job has a great design basis and identity, but this often comes at the cost of its effectiveness notably the higher ranks it goes. It relies a lot on punishment, which top players are able to prevent way more easily, which makes the job absolutely demolish low ranked players, but struggles higher up. This combined with its absolute lack of mobility makes it just struggle to keep up with anything, unless the player jumps into the fray and probably gets obliterated since it's a ranged job with some of the poorest defensives, if not the poorest. All of this tends I feel to make it struggle in the current high end meta, where I think the problem isn't that the job cannot kill or score kills enough as mentioned on the recent patchnotes (it can get a lot of kills and apply a good damage pressure), but that the job doesn't fit well in the current meta and struggles to keep up while being too vulnerable.

I do believe that it would be a shame to homogenize it for balance and I think there is other alternatives that can be considered (see next post to come).