MCH wildfire is a mess

When I first tried to relearn MCH I noticed wildfire underperforming, in 4.0 it used to be unleash as many attacks as possible to gain that sweet 20-25k burst

After a few different approaches I found the most efficient method is to spam one move...

Not only that but if you dare to use any other move the Overheat slows to a odd crawl as if your supposed to use just one skill for the entirety of the wildfire buff, which is a oddly long Cooldown and of course it isn’t the best way, I have found a good mix, but man is it a massive far cry to the bombardment that was 4.0 Wildfire

Overheat should act as Old Rapid fire to all skills not just 2 one being Auto cross

Forgot to mention both Guass and Ricochet don’t contribute to WF which...I fail to see why?

Wildfire has always been a mess. By design, the original version is an awful variant of Raging Strikes, which is to say it's a flat damage steroid, but it back-loads the bonus damage instead of streaming it in like Raging does, albeit with the added benefit of critting on the detonation.

SB made the situation worse by reducing how long WF is up for meaning you had to land more mechanics in a shorter amount of time.

ShB made it better, ish, since now it just works like the old ammo system did, but for 5 or 6 GCDs gated by time instead of for everything unleashed so you don't need to master a ridiculously complicated combo to max out its damage, but it's still just kind of an awkward ability that doesn't feel good outside of the big numbers it used to produce, unlike Raging which lasts long enough that you can make a couple mistakes and not cripple your damage because you just fire the mistake slightly later.

It's a classic example of a mechanic that the devs keep around because of tradition but it probably should have just been scrapped in the rework because it's just an awkward ability. It used to be great in HW when you could pull off 18-25k pops when it detonated. Though I find it awkward because the devs kept another mechanic that was awkward about SB machinist (Overheat), and scrapped a promising mechanic that was very poorly implemented but could have been turned into a really good one given enough time (Heat manipulation). Overheat is still redundant with Wildfire in practice and it's just one of those "But why?" moments of the redesign.

I keep forgetting that wildfire has a longer duration than hypercharge and I can tack on at least one more attack after HC ends, which is kind of awkward feeling since it's pretty obviously meant to be activated along with HC.

And I do feel like it has an unusually long cooldown.
It doesn't hit THAT hard, hell the five heat blasts are going to total more potency than six wildfire stacks, and you can store up enough heat to go heat blast spammy two times in a row, and three times with stabilizer, at the same time spamming gauss round and richoche for even more.

5 Hb is 1100 pot
Wildlife with 6 charges 1200 pot

Huh???
I thought it added 150 per stack.

Where'd I get 150 then?

After level 78 it's 200.

Yea, it as a 1200 potency oGCD ability with a 2 min cd. Not as strong as technical finish from dancer, but also doesnt require 4-5 secs to use. I see it as an interactive buff more so than a core mechanic as its only about 4% of your total damage kit that is used to buff up the damage your next hypercharge. I prefer it this way as with it being a smaller portion of our core damage, it doesn't feel like the entire rotation is built around setting up for it. So if you muck it up, your damage will be lower but not garbage.

I agree.
Though I didn't play mch before 5.0 a very common complaint about wildfire back then was that if you fudged it you completely screwed over your damage until the next wildfire.
Maybe square intended for this to create an "exciting moment" when you got rewarded with such big damage, but all that really does is pressure people to do it right every single time with the failure state being a massive drop in damage.

It's like the dragoon disembowel's +10% damage in that it's not a damage gain by having it up, you're expected to always have it up for maximum effectiveness, which in turn makes it a damage loss if you don't keep it up.
Except the natural flow of dragoon skills means the disembowel self buff should very nearly always be up regardless of circumstances.
Achieving the maximum effect of wild fire pre 5.0, not so much.

Honestly, if Wildfire was just a stronger Hypercharge on a 2min cooldown, I don't think I'd mind. Like, if it boosted Heat Blast/Auto-Crossbow by 100 pot while under Wildfire's Hypercharge.

Isn't it though. You blow it at same time as hypercharge and it basically boosts heat blast by 200 pot on a 2 min cd since wildfire is basically 5 HB followed by one weapskill. Damage is just added at end of CD rather than instantaneous.

Try thinking of Wildfire explosions as the -start- of your burst, not the result of your burst. Imagine the gcds after it when you're reassembling a drill or air anchor while double weaving gauss and ricos.

Wildfire these days is unimpressive as all heck, I completely agree. The amount of damage you get for it is lame for a 2-minute cooldown, the process of getting said damage is essentially no different from executing your usual Hypercharge window, and the animation isn’t even fun or climactic!

I honestly think it’s the worst part of MCH’s kit by far, and wish that SE would either re-think of it or just replace it in 6.0.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Galliford

Wildfire these days is unimpressive as all heck, I completely agree. The amount of damage you get for it is lame for a 2-minute cooldown, the process of getting said damage is essentially no different from executing your usual Hypercharge window, and the animation isn’t even fun or climactic!

I honestly think it’s the worst part of MCH’s kit by far, and wish that SE would either re-think of it or just replace it in 6.0.

---

i think the biggest problem is the cosmetic, it's supposed to be like a bomb, but it has almost no impact when it goes off, i often miss it.

on paper, more dmg for doing your burst window competently is a pretty decent skill mechanic

I don't have much experience with MCH yet. (still lvling mine.)
And I personally think Wildfire is fine. (Could be better though.)
From what i'm reading, Wildfire used to be a lot stronger & was a large part of the MCH DPS and now it's less impactful & they gave us DPS in other places? (correct me if i'm wrong.)

I guess a 1200 potency (?) for a 2 min cooldown ability isn't necessarily a lot.
Would be nice if our oGCDs counted for our Wildfire damage.
Either that or reduce the cooldown to 1 minute.


One thing I personally don't like is that the ability itself doesn't require you to do much else other than use it with your HyperCharge window.
I don't know how HyperCharge worked in SB but I feel like HyperCharge kinda replaced what Wildfire was supposed to be. (A window where you spam as much as possible to get the most damage out of it.) and Wildfire just increases the damage of that window.

Would be nice if Wildfire added something to the actual HyperCharge window that doesn't make it too hard & fast for people with high ping.

My main complaint with Wildfire is the same as it always was. The animation. It's lackluster, for one, but it also doesn't match the tooltip:

"Covers target's body in a slow-burning pitch". It should have a starting animation that reflects it (like a splash or something) and a burning/igniting animation when it finishes. Instead we have the weird little toaster that pops up and tells us it's hot before the little mini explosion.

I think, at the very least, if they made it auto crit and improved the animation and sound effect it would be a lot better.

Following up on my other post.

What if using Barrel Stabilizer during Wildfire increases Wildfire duration by 10 sec.
It would allow us to go into HyperCharge twice in a row during Wildfire & doubling its potency. Would add something to Wildfire rather than just "here have a stronger HyperCharge window."

OR allow Reassemble to work on our Wildfire explosion rather than only weapon skills

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Physic

i think the biggest problem is the cosmetic, it's supposed to be like a bomb, but it has almost no impact when it goes off, i often miss it.

on paper, more dmg for doing your burst window competently is a pretty decent skill mechanic

---

There's not much you can do to make a 1200 potency explosion appear better. And back in HW, Wildfire didn't even have a model. It just kind of exploded. Players were so confused and mad that the devs added a pretty awful bomb model just because players wanted to see something more meaningful than "where'd this explosion come from?"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IchiExorz

Following up on my other post.

What if using Barrel Stabilizer during Wildfire increases Wildfire duration by 10 sec.
It would allow us to go into HyperCharge twice in a row during Wildfire & doubling its potency. Would add something to Wildfire rather than just "here have a stronger HyperCharge window."

OR allow Reassemble to work on our Wildfire explosion rather than only weapon skills

---

No. Just no. Unless the goal is to make MCH have an even longer damage ramp time or to have a repeat of SB's jokes of the class basically not being played, any and all changes should first not be tedious or prohibitively technical. The class can be difficult to optimize, difficult to get a proper flow to it, that's fine. But it should not be unnatural or feel arcane in nature to run it, and the class is somewhat borderline already because of how Overheat and Drill/Air Anchor can line up. I'm a strong proponent of claiming Hagakure was a bad ability that ramped SAM into the stratosphere on skill checks because it was a cooldown reliant on other mechanics being present, and you're basically asking for that again.

Classes should have different levels of challenge to play, and play well. But they should not be ridiculous or technical, as that's what sunk MCH in SB.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Taranok

No. Just no. Unless the goal is to make MCH have an even longer damage ramp time or to have a repeat of SB's jokes of the class basically not being played, any and all changes should first not be tedious or prohibitively technical. The class can be difficult to optimize, difficult to get a proper flow to it, that's fine. But it should not be unnatural or feel arcane in nature to run it, and the class is somewhat borderline already because of how Overheat and Drill/Air Anchor can line up. I'm a strong proponent of claiming Hagakure was a bad ability that ramped SAM into the stratosphere on skill checks because it was a cooldown reliant on other mechanics being present, and you're basically asking for that again.

Classes should have different levels of challenge to play, and play well. But they should not be ridiculous or technical, as that's what sunk MCH in SB.

---

Just trying to come up with ideas that would make the wildfire window feel more impactful & stronger (which is something some people don't seem to like.)
Also I don't even think there's any point in playing/taking a MCH in any team comp right now anyway. Close to no utility (Every ranged physical dps has their own form of Tactician & they don't stack.) And MCH doesn't rival BLM or SAM in terms of DPS.

But I agree that making Barrel Stabilizer increse Wildfire by 10 sec would probably make the class too hard for a few people people & I definitely agree with the Drill/Air Anchor problem.

But I don't think that allowing Reassemble to work on the Wildfire explosion wouldn't make it too hard while making Wildfire stronger & make it feel more explosive.

I'm still leveling MCH but so far the only complaint I have with Wildfire is the animation. Does it have an animation? Idk. It's a freakin' 2 min cd bomb. Crank that puppy up to BLM levels of explosiveness! You know how people complain about Holy spam? I want people to complain that Wildfire blew out their retinas.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daws

I'm still leveling MCH but so far the only complaint I have with Wildfire is the animation. Does it have an animation? Idk. It's a freakin' 2 min cd bomb. Crank that puppy up to BLM levels of explosiveness! You know how people complain about Holy spam? I want people to complain that Wildfire blew out their retinas.

---

Pretty much this, as it stands right now Wildfire is barely noticeable amongst the other animations. It's pretty sad when our 1-2-3 combo outshines a 2min CD, lol.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daws

I'm still leveling MCH but so far the only complaint I have with Wildfire is the animation. Does it have an animation? Idk. It's a freakin' 2 min cd bomb. Crank that puppy up to BLM levels of explosiveness! You know how people complain about Holy spam? I want people to complain that Wildfire blew out their retinas.

---

Absolutely
A 1200 potency attack should feel like it.
I can't even tell when it blows half the time based on visual cues because the effect is so lackluster.

You know what fire 4 looks like?
A spell with around half the potency of wildfire after taking astral and enochian into account.
https://i.ibb.co/2dkD808/exp.jpg

I for one welcome the changed to mechanics for MCH. I really liked the aesthetics of MCH but hated it's rotation that all for the sake of lining up everything up for a wildfire window that if you messed up, would kill your DPS. I'm willing to play MCH now in its current states. I will agree WF could use a better animation though.

I would agree with you, except then you desync Reassemble from Drill/Air Anchor and that will frustrate the rotation there as well. If the goal was to spice up Wildfire while still keeping Wildfire, there's really a couple ways to reliably do it:

You can merge Wildfire directly into Overheat or summoning a pet, or you can make Wildfire just always crit/direct hit without needing an extra button that desyncs other parts of the rotation. Merging Wildfire into Overheat is probably the better option, and then just balancing around. Just add a unique animation to the end of Overheated to signify you shooting a fireball or something and the issue will be done.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daws

I'm still leveling MCH but so far the only complaint I have with Wildfire is the animation. Does it have an animation? Idk. It's a freakin' 2 min cd bomb. Crank that puppy up to BLM levels of explosiveness! You know how people complain about Holy spam? I want people to complain that Wildfire blew out their retinas.

---

You should have seen it back in HW when it was just a wimpy explosion out of nowhere accompanied with an 18-25k damage hit, which was the single largest individual attack in the entire game at the time. The current version adds a model to it, so it's always been bad.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Taranok

I would agree with you, except then you desync Reassemble from Drill/Air Anchor and that will frustrate the rotation there as well. If the goal was to spice up Wildfire while still keeping Wildfire, there's really a couple ways to reliably do it:

You can merge Wildfire directly into Overheat or summoning a pet, or you can make Wildfire just always crit/direct hit without needing an extra button that desyncs other parts of the rotation. Merging Wildfire into Overheat is probably the better option, and then just balancing around. Just add a unique animation to the end of Overheated to signify you shooting a fireball or something and the issue will be done.

---

I personally find Wildfire a bit boring to use (it's literally just a Hypercharge window that does more damage.) Which is why I'd prefer to have something added to the Wildfire window. Not only to make it stronger but to emphasize on the Machinists fast playstyle.
But maybe this is just me.

Either way, I doubt SE would change too much anyway mid expansion.
I do wish it was a stronger ability with a more explosive animation though. Maybe that would make the ability feel more satisfying to pull off without doing anything to the rotation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IchiExorz

I personally find Wildfire a bit boring to use (it's literally just a Hypercharge window that does more damage.) Which is why I'd prefer to have something added to the Wildfire window. Not only to make it stronger but to emphasize on the Machinists fast playstyle.
But maybe this is just me.

Either way, I doubt SE would change too much anyway mid expansion.
I do wish it was a stronger ability with a more explosive animation though. Maybe that would make the ability feel more satisfying to pull off without doing anything to the rotation.

---

My only point of contention with emphasizing on Machinist's fast playstyle is that the class should be playable on pings higher than 100 with a mildly unstable connection and not feel like garbage. Wildfire could have a million things done to it, but I'd honestly just rather see it removed as it's no longer a core part of what defines Machinist, and 1200 potency of an underwhelming oGCD wouldn't be missed if you just shifted it into other things.

On paper 1200 certainly sounds like a big number, but divided by 48, the amount of global cooldowns in two minutes on the base 2.5 timer, it's 25.
Meaning that you could up the potency of the three standard combo skills by 25 and nix wildfire altogether and you'd have roughly the same effect, except skill speed reduces the gcd so reduce that to 20 and it's probably about even.

That's right, wildfire is worth a paltry 20 potency per gcd.

Air anchor and drill are both so much more significant to overall damage than wildfire that it's kind of jarring seeing as it's supposed to be the jobs signature big damage attack.
And technically it is the hardest hitting attack.
But it sure doesn't feel like it.

I never really saw Wildfire as MCH's 'hardest hitting attack', rather than it being a buff, like it's own version of Balance with a unique execution.
You hardly notice the attack itself, the animation is literally a damp squib.

It's big attacks should be machinery, and that's what seems to be going on, even if the Anchor spam phase is a little odd.