Some ideas for MCH revamp

I love gun wielding class in general, but MCH is by far the more unappealing job in FFXIV. With new changes in 4.0 and gauss barrel heat/overheat system. I don't agree with some of the oGCDs anymore. The heated shots are fun as hell, but before we can get to level 64... It is extremely boring. I'm not asking it to be similar to BRD. It's just that we need major changes here and there to be competitive.

The First thing I want to talk about is The Ammunition System:

3 bullets maximum makes Reload a joke action to use. If we remove Ammunition system completely, we get to free at least 2 oGCD spots for better job actions to be added since Quick Reload and Reload won't be needed anymore. Doing that also means we need to get rid of RNG from MCH combos. In fact, Split, Slug, and Clean shot shouldn't even require fishing for chance to trigger the 123 combos tbh. It should just be like how melee combos work.

For job actions we need to replace Quick Reload, Reload, and Reassemble as well.
Reload's potency increase isn't even significant, we just use it to trigger split shot 123 combo anyway. It also makes a MCH who are not yet lvl 70 (or lvl 66 to be more accurate) takes quite a long time to build heat. We need to reach 50 heat to use heated shots, but we also need ammo to trigger our combos, but ammo is preventing us to gain more heat. How contradicting is that?
Reassemble is a 1 minute cool down that gives 1 time 100% crit chance to gcd only... Just 1? Again, how underwhelming is that?
IMO, any other oGCD from BRD is better than these 3 actions.

The next thing is The Heat Gauge:

The Heat Gauge and Ammunition system itself is a giant contradiction. Before we can build 50 heat, our ammo that we are force to use will slow us down as mentioned above. Don't worry, we don't need ammo to reduce heat when we use heated shots. You gave us Cooldown to manage our heat didn't you?

And then the Wildfire:

First of all, What the F? Why was this one modified? I'll admit I hate Wildfire want me to unload everything for the sake of the burst, but IT WAS FINE. The buff duration to perform rotation was a decent amount of time. I appreciate its cd got reduced to 1 min, but with 10 seconds, I basically don't know what I'm doing. I just use it when it cd is off now while 1111111 split shot because of bad RNG.

MCH at lvl 70 has some issues. MCH not yet lvl 70 got even bigger issues. How can people get into play this job if MCH has such horrible leveling experience?

Most cooldowns align perfectly with Wildfire: Hypercharge (every other WF), Rapid Fire, Barrel Stabilizer, Richochet. I think right before WF comes off CD you should be at or near 100 heat, which means you should HC then WF then do your rotation while using damage cooldowns and Reload+Quick Reload as needed. Think you should be able to get off 6 GCDs in 10s with using Rapid Fire (1-2-1-3-2-3).

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Originally Posted by Miziliti

I love gun wielding class in general, but MCH is by far the more unappealing job in FFXIV. With new changes in 4.0 and gauss barrel heat/overheat system. I don't agree with some of the oGCDs anymore. The heated shots are fun as hell, but before we can get to level 64... It is extremely boring. I'm not asking it to be similar to BRD. It's just that we need major changes here and there to be competitive.

The First thing I want to talk about is The Ammunition System:

3 bullets maximum makes Reload a joke action to use. If we remove Ammunition system completely, we get to free at least 2 oGCD spots for better job actions to be added since Quick Reload and Reload won't be needed anymore. Doing that also means we need to get rid of RNG from MCH combos. In fact, Split, Slug, and Clean shot shouldn't even require fishing for chance to trigger the 123 combos tbh. It should just be like how melee combos work.

For job actions we need to replace Quick Reload, Reload, and Reassemble as well.
Reload's potency increase isn't even significant, we just use it to trigger split shot 123 combo anyway. It also makes a MCH who are not yet lvl 70 (or lvl 66 to be more accurate) takes quite a long time to build heat. We need to reach 50 heat to use heated shots, but we also need ammo to trigger our combos, but ammo is preventing us to gain more heat. How contradicting is that?
Reassemble is a 1 minute cool down that gives 1 time 100% crit chance to gcd only... Just 1? Again, how underwhelming is that?
IMO, any other oGCD from BRD is better than these 3 actions.

The next thing is The Heat Gauge:

The Heat Gauge and Ammunition system itself is a giant contradiction. Before we can build 50 heat, our ammo that we are force to use will slow us down as mentioned above. Don't worry, we don't need ammo to reduce heat when we use heated shots. You gave us Cooldown to manage our heat didn't you?

And then the Wildfire:

First of all, What the F? Why was this one modified? I'll admit I hate Wildfire want me to unload everything for the sake of the burst, but IT WAS FINE. The buff duration to perform rotation was a decent amount of time. I appreciate its cd got reduced to 1 min, but with 10 seconds, I basically don't know what I'm doing. I just use it when it cd is off now while 1111111 split shot because of bad RNG.

MCH at lvl 70 has some issues. MCH not yet lvl 70 got even bigger issues. How can people get into play this job if MCH has such horrible leveling experience?

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First: Ammos are here to counteract the RNG system, it's basically a free "I know what will happen and will be using them wisely".

Second : Non heat gain on ammunition are basically, a babysit system, so you never have to use cooldown on an ammunition, as it won't make you overheat to use a split/slug shot until you're done procing shots.

Third : Reassemble is not a guaranteed underwhelming critical hit, it's a guaranteed critical hit every time you wildfire, which means a free +50% damage critical clean shot on every overheated wildfire (dure to stacking damage modifiers of wildfire and overheat).

Fourth : Wildfire stood wildly the same, with a 60s Cooldown and 10s duration, it has the same overall coverup, what changed is just we don't have raging strike/BFB on it anymore, and amunition everytime we WF.

Basically, wildfire/mildfire was allways a leart partition, even in heavensward if you wanted to deal the most damage of it, you had to learn a specific chain of skills used to prepair and exploit wildfire at most. The thing is the same right now, except that the partition is the same every wildfire (except hypercharged one) : MCH is a job that plan on burst damage, and you don't spam split shot during WF because you plan on which shots you will prepair and have ready for the moment you drop wildfire.

That goes with the 30s reload : Once per minute you will have flamethrower, reload, quick reload, rapid fire, reassemble, gauss round, ricochet and barrel stabilizer up at the same exact timeframe, and your job is to learn how to get the best of them for a 10s burst windows.

I won't say machinist is perfect, but however, it's certainly not good until you know specifically what to do with it for burst windows, which as heavensward, is something you have to learn and practice methodically before seeing any results.

You clearly don't understand the job at all if for WF you 'just use it when it cd is off now while 1111111 split shot because of bad RNG.' There's literally no RNG involved in WF outside of Crit/DH - but that's normal for every job.

Maybe learn the job first, then come back and give some suggestions?

MCH leveling experience is pretty lackluster, but the rotation flows well at level 70 with the full skill set. The only problem with MCH is how punishing it is for high-ping players.

I don't think Ammo is a problem. Sure, hitting 1 over and over hoping for a proc is annoying, but the job is built to be a burst-heavy job. It's built to make the most of its burst window, and, boy howdy does it. I would also disagree that heat in itself is bad. The problem lies in that when Heat is introduced, it's irrelevant until 10 levels later. I would make a few adjustments to change that:

1) Gauss Barrel damage increase change: If heat is 0-49, damage increase is 5%. If heat is above 50, damage increase is 10%. If overheated, damage increase is 20%. This teaches players early on that the ideal heat window is between 50 and 99 unless Wildfire is nearly off cooldown, then you want to Overheat.

2) Gauss Round has more interactivity with Gauss Barrel: When Gauss Round is used when your heat is between 0 and 49, Gauss Round's potency is 200. When your heat is above 50, Gauss Round's potency is 250. When Overheated, Gauss Round's potency is 300. When Gauss Round is used, the Gauss Barrel is disabled for repairs for 10s. Cooldown is changed to 30s. This helps with Overheats in HW content, giving you a bonus when you do. It shares the same penalty timer as the Gauss Barrel overheat, so nothing is really lost. (The description will change to "Launches Gauss Barrel as ammunition at an enemy")

3) Dismantle is changed to a lv40 skill and Cooldown is instead learned at lv56: Cooldown's current level of 62 is extremely baffling as a learned skill choice and, again, makes Gauss Barrel feel disjointed from MCH's kit until SB. This helps with heat management and the SB leveling process where new players would be dealing with Heat.

4) Heated Shot trait moved down to 62: Not much to say here other than I want a different skill at 64. I would also like to see a heated Spread Shot, but that might be too much to ask.

5) Grenado Shot is reintroduced at lv64: Grenado Shot will get a heat bonus and a proc bonus from Spread Shot (so it's affected by Ammo), making MCH's AoE damage a little better. Like, Grenado Shot can only be used if Heat is above 50, but there's also a chance that Grenado Shot's damage will increase if Spread Shot is used (maybe Grenado Shot will have falloff damage as well). If they don't want Grenado Shot, they can make a new oGCD that uses the old Rend Mind animation to make up for the small loss of Gauss Round. If they really want to be fancy, they could make Grenado Shot a cooldown that does AoE damage and spread the Wildfire debuff with its current timer (but not current damage build-up or current damage build-up with falloff) to all targets in range.

Machinist really needs a heat management ability soon after acquiring Gauss Barrel and there's plenty of room to move skills around since the job doesn't get any skills between 40-50. Shift Gauss Barrel to 48, Cooldown to 52, and give us another support ability or oGCD damage ability at 62.

While we're at moving skills around, why is Quick Reload still a skill? In HW it had an additional affect to restoring a tiny bit of TP. In SB it used to reduce heat by 10 which was what you could use between between trash to lower your heat a little. Now it's just taking up space. It'd make more sense to restore Reload to 5 ammo and drop its recast to 15s or 20s then change Quick Reload to something else... maybe bring back Lead Shot or Grenado Shot?

As things are, the only big problems I see left with machinist are:

1. Ammo stills freezes heat generation. This is not a good thing and only serves to lower dps (you fire less cooldowns) and make openers very awkward. They only made this worse when they changed our weaponskill heat generation from 10 to 5 for some reason. Making heat management 'easier' is not a buff, and only makes the job easier to play for new players at the cost of everyone else.

2. Flamethrower is a very lacklustre level 70 ability.
It's a 'decent' AoE but nowhere near powerful enough to warrant being a level 70 ability (at 150p per gcd for 4 gcds, that's about on par with dragoons who alternate between 130p and 170p with normal weaponskills every gcd). Apart from that its only use is to allow you to transition into an overheated state from any starting heat amount, but not only is it imprecise while doing so (you have to count the ticks in your head to know when to cancel it, and also punishes people with bad ping), it feels bad in general because you lose dps and autoattacks when stopping to channel it. It's just not worthy of being a level 70 skill at all.

With wildfire and now turret overload in Stormblood, machinists have a very strong identity as a fast paced, burst damage job that performs well in fights with a lot of pauses in combat. Unfortunately flamethrower goes against that whole theme, it lacks the precision and excitement that the rest of the rotation has and not to mention you have to stand still. Compare that to PvP MCH which has the ability to instantly set their heat gauge to 100 because you need that kind of on-demand precision in PvP, I'll swap flamethrower for that any day.

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Originally Posted by Myon88

Compare that to PvP MCH which has the ability to instantly set their heat gauge to 100 because you need that kind of on-demand precision in PvP, I'll swap flamethrower for that any day.

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One interesting thing in PvP is, while you can force an overheat on demand, you do even more damage if you can overheat at the right time without it. Overheat lasts for 3 seconds longer than Wildfire, so you can overheat with a GCD instead (which is easier with 10 heat per shot), then use Wildfire, and overheat will still last for the entirety of Wildfire. Then you can Stun Gun > Between the Eyes right at the end for a giant spike of damage.

I find MCH more fun to play in PvP than in PvE because heat management is more engaging and directly feeds into maximizing burst. You spend a lot of time in PvP waiting for the right time to strike though, which doesn't normally happen in PvE, so I don't know how well the strengths of MCH's PvP design could be applied to PvE.

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Originally Posted by Eir_Z

While we're at moving skills around, why is Quick Reload still a skill? In HW it had an additional affect to restoring a tiny bit of TP. In SB it used to reduce heat by 10 which was what you could use between between trash to lower your heat a little. Now it's just taking up space. It'd make more sense to restore Reload to 5 ammo and drop its recast to 15s or 20s then change Quick Reload to something else... maybe bring back Lead Shot or Grenado Shot?

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I had an idea for a new cooldown that loads a special ammunition, like the ammo boost is 50 instead of 25, calling it a Hollow point round. Quick Reload could be repurposed into that.

Having Reload/Quick Reload actually helps with the regular pacing when building heat after the initial opener. (From 50 up to 95) With BS and perhaps all the other burst tools, Wildfire included, on cooldown, I often use QR on cooldown as I go through my shot combo (Remember: Cooldown, the shot, has the same potency of a Heated Slug Shot, and that's before the added potency with ammo, so you're really not at a huge loss for using Cooldown less when you have a procced Heated Slug with ammo) and I find that just as I reach 95, use Reload, and set up my procs for Wildfire, everything comes off cooldown right as I need it. It's like clockwork, and it's wonderful that way. Without the slight pauses QR gives you, you'd be hitting 95 before everything is ready. Sure, you could use Cooldown if somehow everything isn't ready, but I can't deny that simply taking advantage of QR while building heat just makes everything line up perfectly.

I say this as one of the few who don't want the heat generation per shot to go back to 10. At 5, and fully utilizing QR and the other tools, when you do it right, it's just so precisely on time it feels so good.

I really like the idea of loading different kinds of ammo. Something like explosive rounds instead of Spread Shot, hollow points that added a 5s bleeding DOT, or high velocity rounds that added/doubled your attack range would be thematically really fun. The only conflict I see is every damage skill is already arguably different ammo... Split vs Slug vs Clean etc. Different kinds of ammo would make the job really interactive and adaptive so long as the recast timers weren't too long.

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Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI

At 5, and fully utilizing QR and the other tools, when you do it right, it's just so precisely on time it feels so good.

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It's certainly nice, but personally I'm wary about being overly focused on our heat per gcd output in that manner, it assumes you get close to 100% uptime and don't miss a GCD, which is what allows things to sum up nicely like that.

If you get a pause in combat for example, suddenly you're firing less gcds and generating less heat between each wildfire cycle, or you might have to delay quick reload and throw it out of sync for a bit. If you ask me it's more important to know how to recover and adapt around these things than what the 'ideal' heat cycle looks like - that's why the job's toolkit needs to feel good holistically in all situations and not just the ideal ones.

Personally, I think it feels better now than ever. Not everything, no, but timing and proper cooldown usage (in general, not the shot) really allow you to set up that clockwork rotation. On the odd moment I find I've kinda ramped up too quickly (not sure if an issue cause I'm on east coast or not), I use Cooldown to try and realign my timing, but the liberal use of Quick Reload during my climb to 95 helps a bit with reaching that sweet spot where everything comes off cooldown right when I need it.

I'm bad at explaining it, unfortunately. It's something I've really just gotten the hang of purely by feel.

Just a thought...

Why can't we deploy our Bishop turret while Rook is "being repaired" after an Overdrive?

I'd have liked that too haha, if only because it's a bit cheeky (hey we have 2 turrets don't we?) and would add a little bit of depth to our playstyle choosing which one to blow up.

It would be quite a significant dps increase though, so I'm not sure how they would balance that, not that I'm opposed to more damage. The bishop is 75% of the rook's damage even in single target so we would be getting a strong attack every 2 minutes for relatively little punishment.