MCH Overheat should activate automatically

I think Hyperchange should be removed, Heat Blast and Auto Crossbow should activate overheat mode automatically when used.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IronIngot

I think Hyperchange should be removed, Heat Blast and Auto Crossbow should activate overheat mode automatically when used.

---

So when you hit 50 heat, Heat Blast and Auto Crossbow light up and once pressed starts the 10 second window?

I am so down for that. I see nothing wrong with this idea.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Awarewolf

So when you hit 50 heat, Heat Blast and Auto Crossbow light up and once pressed starts the 10 second window?

---

Yep, thats it

Pretty sure this is a bad attempt at trolling, but for any sensible Machinist, this is a terrible idea. Reducing the flexibility on when to Hypercharge will cause Drill, Air Anchor and Chain Saw to drift making the rotation feel terrible to play.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikey_R

Pretty sure this is a bad attempt at trolling, but for any sensible Machinist, this is a terrible idea. Reducing the flexibility on when to Hypercharge will cause Drill, Air Anchor and Chain Saw to drift making the rotation feel terrible to play.

---

You still control when it activates by hitting Heat Blast or Autocrossbow. You misunderstood the OP.

You know what, I re-read it and I did, so I will apologise for that.

With this revised mindset, it could also help in Wildfire windows. i don't know if it is still the case, but I know in ShB there were certain GCDs you did not want to end Wildfire on as the damage was registered too late, having Wildfire being able to be applied later in the GCD window could give extra time and prevent that restriction.

Wait? You didn't like automatically sacrificing an animation-lock's worth of Overheated's 8s duration, dropping it from max 6 (8/1.5) shots to max 5 (slightly under 7.5/1.5)?!

Personally, I'd slightly prefer a different tack, if only because I dislike button-bloat:

• Hypercharge Overheats your next 6 shots; 12s max duration.
• Heat Blast, once acquired, replaces Hypercharge while Overheated.
• Auto Crossbow, once acquired, replaces Spread Shot / Scattergun while Overheated.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Wait? You didn't like automatically sacrificing an animation-lock's worth of Overheated's 8s duration, dropping it from max 6 (8/1.5) shots to max 5 (slightly under 7.5/1.5)?!

Personally, I'd slightly prefer a different tack, if only because I dislike button-bloat:

• Hypercharge Overheats your next 6 shots; 12s max duration.
• Heat Blast, once acquired, replaces Hypercharge while Overheated.
• Auto Crossbow, once acquired, replaces Spread Shot / Scattergun while Overheated.

---

Yeah removing the animation and giving X amount of stacks that last Y time (like WAR Inner Release) to use Heat Blast and Auto Crossbow is also a good idea.

How about this:
- Get to 50 heat
- Heat Blast and Auto Crossbow become available
- When used they consume 50 heat and fire off right away
- You get 5(?) overheat charges lasting ~15s
- Each use of Heat Blast or Auto Crossbow consumes 1 charge
- When you consume all the stacks you can use another 50 heat or continue your rotation

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IronIngot

How about this:
- Get to 50 heat
- Heat Blast and Auto Crossbow become available
- When used they consume 50 heat and fire off right away
- You get 5(?) overheat charges lasting ~15s
- Each use of Heat Blast or Auto Crossbow consumes 1 charge

---

It's 2 buttons, up from 1, but the added flexibility would definitely be worth it, imo! Definitely add some further audio and visual element though so that you know when you're down to 1-2 shots, though, or else people might accidentally spam into a second round of Overheated that they'd had meant to save for raid buffs. (We see similar protection for stack-based systems already applied to all but Requiescat-Confiteor.)

Now, the harder question, though... could we ever get back some manner of Heat mechanic that gives MCH more to do than just 1-2-3 and hit CDs as they refresh?... >.>

:: Final bit: Let's please let the reduced-GCD of Heat Blast and Auto Crossbow scale with GCD speed.

Flexibility + An OGCD window is free.

In the current context, it's a great idea.
Considering SQEX didn't expanded on the heat and since we don't know their plans, it could be a nice QoL.

The GCD that triggers overheat could also be a different one that then transforms into Heatblast.
Plus, the animation is kinda weird, you make your lunchbox sparks then it makes your gun shot faster? Initially, it was for the turret to go Hypercharge.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CKNovel

The GCD that triggers overheat could also be a different one that then transforms into Heatblast.

---

I don't see why we'd want to spend a button just for that, though? If it had a big bursty hit to start things off and we could later reuse it for a less efficient but burstier use of stacks, sure, but otherwise we may as well leave it on the same key.

Quote:

---

Plus, the animation is kinda weird, you make your lunchbox sparks then it makes your gun shot faster?

---

Agreed. Stormblood Overheat never had enough visual or auditory feedback prior to actually hitting max to make it feel like it was heating up the gun, either, but at least it made some sort of sense.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I don't see why we'd want to spend a button just for that, though? If it had a big bursty hit to start things off and we could later reuse it for a less efficient but burstier use of stacks, sure, but otherwise we may as well leave it on the same key.

---

Think of it as Gnashing Fang that starts the cartridge combo.
Instead of being Gnashing Fang -> Savage Claw -> Wicked Talon, it would be:
Heatburst -> Heatblast -> Heatblast -> Heatblast -> Heatblast.

All of it on the same button. Yes, that's mainly fluff.
In my opinion, the best of world would have an Overheat starter -> Heatblast*3 -> Overheat Finisher.

this is a very good idea honestly
also be nice if hyper charge was a battery gain as a replacement
the name would make more sense imho

I'm 100% down for this. It would make activating Wildfire and Overheat so much smoother.

While at max level yes you will never spend it on anything but heat blast and auto crossbow, do keep in mind it’s easy to forget that hypercharge is actually a CD with its own effects.

You obtain hypercharge at level 30 and it increases your weaponskill potencies. You don’t get heat blast until 35 and auto crossbow doesn’t come until 52. This change may help at max level but for the levelling process it would be a nerf to both single target level 30-34 and AoE from 30-52.

-Edit-: Just so it isn't harped on, talking this through more I don't really think this anymore. I don't want to remove the post because it makes the follow-up messages not make sense -Edit-

The only real problem with this is that it's not intuitive. It's not something that can be explained well to the average user because it would be the only place where something like this exists. In a vacuum it would be nice to clean up/streamline the class, but it's likely to
cause confusion; too much to consider this based off the small amount of value it would give.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CKNovel

In my opinion, the best of world would have an Overheat starter -> Heatblast*3 -> Overheat Finisher.

---

I dig it.

Ideally, I might like the option of sacrificing a further button on having that Finisher separately available, such that we can blow all remaining stacks on an early Finisher (and ideally, have it be enhanced slightly by those consumed stacks, just not to the point of being an overall increase potency-over-time), but in that case I'd still turn Heatblast into said Finisher automatically upon reaching that final stack.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

The only real problem with this is that it's not intuitive. It's not something that can be explained well to the average user because it would be the only place where something like this exists. In a vacuum it would be nice to clean up/streamline the class, but it's likely to cause confusion; too much to consider this based off the small amount of value it would give.

---

Wait, what? This is already in game on other jobs. Have you not played Dragoon since Stormblood?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Wait, what? This is already in game on other jobs. Have you not played Dragoon since Stormblood?

---

Eh, I guess Life of the Dragon is somewhat similar. Replacing an OGCD with a different OGCD for 30 seconds that refreshes quicker is a little different from the expectation of spamming a GCD for 8 seconds. Pressing available OGCDs as they come up is part of normal DRG rotation, it just gives you a different OGCD to press. Pressing the same GCD for 8 seconds isn't part of "normal" MCH rotation. I'll concede that it isn't completely different, though 1 or 2 other jobs still doesn't make it a common occurrence (Gnashing Fang could be considered similar I suppose)

From a programming aspect it is completely different, because the use of Geirskogul puts you into Life of the Dragon and then is replaced with the ability that can only be used in Life of the Dragon. It would be more difficult to program this with MCH unless you had 2 separate abilities (One that ate 50 heat gauge and put you into overheat and one that can only be used in overheat), unless you just make it "This ability costs 50 heat gauge and grants 'Overheat'" and have Overheat be "abilities that cost heat gauge are free for the duration".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

From a programming aspect it is completely different, because the use of Geirskogul puts you into Life of the Dragon and then is replaced with the ability that can only be used in Life of the Dragon. It would be more difficult to program this with MCH unless you had 2 separate abilities (One that ate 50 heat gauge and put you into overheat and one that can only be used in overheat), unless you just make it "This ability costs 50 heat gauge and grants 'Overheat'" and have Overheat be "abilities that cost heat gauge are free for the duration".

---

Ninja has a ton of gcd swaps that are conditional, and summoner also has gcd swaps that change back to normal on timer. Warrior has Fell Cleave which costs 50 to use but is free during Inner Release. They already have the code for it. They might have to add or remove couple of lines.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

From a programming aspect it is completely different, because the use of Geirskogul puts you into Life of the Dragon and then is replaced with the ability that can only be used in Life of the Dragon. It would be more difficult to program this with MCH unless you had 2 separate abilities (One that ate 50 heat gauge and put you into overheat and one that can only be used in overheat), unless you just make it "This ability costs 50 heat gauge and grants 'Overheat'" and have Overheat be "abilities that cost heat gauge are free for the duration".

---

I think you're overestimating how difficult this would be. The game has plenty of examples of action mechanics that can be applied to this.

• Actions can grant a status effect.
• Actions can silently upgrade while under the effect of a status (Fire) or after satisfying some condition (Wheeling Thrust, Fang and Claw).
• Actions can explicitly upgrade to other actions while under the effect of a status (Raiden Thrust).
• Actions with different cooldowns can share a button (Geirskogul & Nastrond).
• Actions with different types can share a button (Standard Step & Standard Finish).
• Actions of a type other than Weaponskill can trigger the cooldown of weaponskills (DNC steps and NIN jutsus).

These are all things that are already in the game and it should be a trivial matter to implement something like the following:


Action: Heat Blast (icon version A)
Type: Weaponskill
Cast/Recast: Instant/8s
Range/Radius: 25y/0y
Deals damage with a potency of 190. Releases the energy building in your firearm, granting 5 stacks of Overheated.
Overheated Effect: Increases the potency of all single-target weaponskills by 20.
Duration: 15s.
Heat Gauge Cost: 50
Additional Effect: Reduces the recast time of both Gauss Round and Ricochet by 15s.
(Hidden details: Potency is 190 to account for not being affected by its own Overheat effect. Triggers a 1.5s cooldown on all weaponskills. Upgrades Heat Blast (icon version A) to Heat Blast (icon version B) and Auto Crossbow (icon version A) to Auto Crossbow (icon version B) while under the effect of Overheated. Recast timer is always 8s.)


Action: Heat Blast (icon version B)
Type: Weaponskill
Cast/Recast: Instant/1.5s
Range/Radius: 25y/0y
Deals damage with a potency of 170.
Additional Effect: Reduces the recast time of both Gauss Round and Ricochet by 15s.
Recast timer cannot be affected by status effects or gear attributes.


Then do the same with Auto Crossbow. The two icon versions are necessary indicators for the player so they don't unintentionally start a second Overheat at the end of the first. The version A actions could also be Abilities, but then you'd have to add "Triggers the cooldown of weaponskills upon execution," and they wouldn't work with buffs that grant buddy gauge from weaponskills.

Definitely fair. Talking it through you're right, it likely wouldn't be as confusing as I had originally though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cabalabob

While at max level yes you will never spend it on anything but heat blast and auto crossbow, do keep in mind it’s easy to forget that hypercharge is actually a CD with its own effects.

You obtain hypercharge at level 30 and it increases your weaponskill potencies. You don’t get heat blast until 35 and auto crossbow doesn’t come until 52. This change may help at max level but for the levelling process it would be a nerf to both single target level 30-34 and AoE from 30-52.

---

Upgrade Hypercharge to Heat Blast at level 35.

Remove Hypercharge and move Rook Autoturret to level 30.

Remove Hypercharge and move Heat Blast to level 30.

Any of those could work.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seraphor

Upgrade Hypercharge to Heat Blast at level 35.

Remove Hypercharge and move Rook Autoturret to level 30.

Remove Hypercharge and move Heat Blast to level 30.

Any of those could work.

---

Doesn’t fix AoE up to level 52, you want to have to use a single target GCD heat blast to activate overheat instead of an oGCD hypercharge?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cabalabob

Doesn’t fix AoE up to level 52, you want to have to use a single target GCD heat blast to activate overheat instead of an oGCD hypercharge?

---

Hypercharge "releases the energy building in your firearm, causing it to become Overheated, increasing the potency of single-target weaponskills by 20." There is no AoE Hypercharge, regardless, until level 52, at which point Auto Crossbow likewise becomes an activator for the Heated Up window.

Mashing together suggestions from Shurrikhan, CKNovel and Rongway, while adding a bit of my own:

Single target:

(NEW)
Action: Flash Point
Type: Weaponskill
Cast/Recast: Instant / 1.5s
Range/Radius: 25y / 0y
Delivers an attack with a potency of 190, overheating your weapon.
Heat Gauge Cost: 50
Additional Effect: Grants 5 charges of Overheat.
Duration: 15s
Additional Effect: Grants Vent Ready
Duration: 15s
Additional Effect: Reduces the recast time of both Gauss Round and Ricochet by 15s

Action: Heat Blast
Type: Weaponskill
Cast/Recast: Instant / 1.5s
Range/Radius: 25y / 0y
Delivers an attack with a potency of 170.
Overheat cost: 1
Additional Effect: Reduces the recast time of both Gauss Round and Ricochet by 15s
Recast timer cannot be affected by status effects or gear attributes.

(NEW)
Action: Vent
Type: Weaponskill
Cast/Recast: Instant / 2.5s
Range/Radius: 25y / 0y
Consume all Overheat charges and deliver an attack with a potency of 300.
Additional Effect: Increase potency by 30 for each Overheat charge consumed.
Can only be executed while under effect of Vent Ready

AoE:

(NEW)
Action: Pressurize
Type: Weaponskill
Cast/Recast: Instant / 1.5s
Range/Radius: 12y / 12y
Delivers an attack with a potency of 170 to all enemies in a cone before you overheating your weapon.
Heat Gauge Cost: 50
Additional Effect: Grants 5 charges of Overheat.
Duration: 15s
Additional Effect: Grants Eject Ready
Duration: 15s

Action: Auto Crossbow
Type: Weaponskill
Cast/Recast: Instant / 1.5s
Range/Radius: 12y / 12y
Delivers an attack with a potency of 140 to all enemies in a cone before you.
Overheat cost: 1
Recast timer cannot be affected by status effects or gear attributes.

(NEW)
Action: Eject Magazine
Cast/Recast: Instant / 2.5s
Range/Radius: 12y / 12y
Deliver an attack with a potency of 160 to all enemies in a straight line before you.
Additional Effect: Increase potency by 10 for each Overheat charge consumed.
Can only be executed while under effect of Eject Ready.


So in summary:
Single Target = Flash Point > Heat Blast x5 > Vent (Can be activated early)
AoE = Pressurize> Auto Crossbow x5 > Eject Magazine (Can be activated early)

The downside being that while Hypercharge is removed, Vent and Eject Magazine are introduced, alternative would be to have them be swapped in when Overheat charge is at 1 as a finisher, removing the extra potency bonus and removing Vent Ready and Eject Ready.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IronIngot

...

---

This seems a bit button-bloated.

It's very rare that AoE vs. ST options constitute a real decision. Such requires both a target count and relative power between the options such that the focus target damage of the pure ST option might outweigh the greater total damage of the AoE option. Given present AoE tuning across the game and how damn near unheard of focus targeting is to this game... it doesn't worth having 3 extra buttons just to attempt a (shabby) illusion of complexity. I'd recommend just turning Flash Point and Vent into AoEs with falloff, having Heat Blast (if not added directly to one's hotbars already) replace Flash Point and Auto-crossbow (if not added directly to one's hotbars already) replace Spread Shot, bringing the button consumption down from 6 to 2 (FP->HB and Vent) or 3 (FP->HB, Vent, and AC not forced over Spread/Scatter) at the player's discretion.

I also don't see why you'd want to, like present models, go out of your way to make Skill Speed even more terrible via the "Recast timer cannot be affected by status effects or gear attributes" clause.

Other than that, looks good.

It indeed is button bloating.

You don't need AoE variant, just makes them AoE per default nothing will change.
WAR primal rend is an AoE but works wonderfully against a single target.

The Overheat starter being the first GCD of the Overheat phase, it should give 4 stacks of Overheat.
Giving it 5 stacks will simply make Overheat phase longer and reduce the MCH flexibility.

As for the finisher, you can even turn Scatter gun into a superior version during Overheat, let's say "Super shotgun".
Straight line AoE, makes Scattergun button relevant in single target situations.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CKNovel

As for the finisher, you can even turn Scatter gun into a superior version during Overheat, let's say "Super shotgun".
Straight line AoE, makes Scattergun button relevant in single target situations.

---

Dragonfire. It's an actual shotgun thing and it'd be very, well, heated. Give it a nice short-and-chunky DoT. Longer-range narrow conal AoE still preferable, though, imo. (We already see tons of different cone-angles conals across the game, from 10 degrees to 180 [well, I suppose that's exactly where it stops being a conal].)

Quote:

---

The Overheat starter being the first GCD of the Overheat phase, it should give 4 stacks of Overheat.

---

As long as the starter also gets the reduced GCD, this would be preferable, yeah. The threshold between what feels "significant" and what feels "spammy" can be as little as a 5th GCD.

So removing any button bloating and streamlining the burst would be something like this:

Opener (Grant 4? Overheat) > Heat Blast (x3?) > Finisher with DoT, everything being on the same button.

The combo could be AoE from start or get upgraded at 52 via trait and the Auto Crossbow would be removed or reworked into oGCD?

Overheat starter and Heatblast can be on the same button, but the finisher needs to be on a separate button in the case you want to finish it early.
The dot is fluff at best.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Wait? You didn't like automatically sacrificing an animation-lock's worth of Overheated's 8s duration, dropping it from max 6 (8/1.5) shots to max 5 (slightly under 7.5/1.5)?!

---

Not to burst that particular bubble, but without the animation, they would probably reduce the duration of Overheated anyway...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Archwizard

Not to burst that particular bubble, but without the animation, they would probably reduce the duration of Overheated anyway...

---

Then they should have already reduced it by 1s to prevent you fitting in a 6th GCD.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Archwizard

Not to burst that particular bubble, but without the animation, they would probably reduce the duration of Overheated anyway...

---

They could reduce it down to its current shot count of 5 (and suggestions thus far have followed that line of thought) or retain its initially apparent maximum of 6, since MCH is undertuned anyways. I prefer 5, myself, if only because it starts to feel a bit too long/spammy thereafter for a "burst"-like mechanic.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seraphor

Then they should have already reduced it by 1s to prevent you fitting in a 6th GCD.

---

It already does, just not in a way that's obvious to those who forget that the activation animation has an uptime cost of its own. It's fine, and the extra second (putting actual duration at 7.5, instead of 6.5) is probably appreciated by some high-ping players; it's just not as intuitive as it could be.

(That, and roundtrip ping times being added atop animation uptime costs shouldn't be a thing regardless.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

It already does, just not in a way that's obvious to those who forget that the activation animation has an uptime cost of its own. It's fine, and the extra second (putting actual duration at 7.5, instead of 6.5) is probably appreciated by some high-ping players; it's just not as intuitive as it could be.

(That, and roundtrip ping times being added atop animation uptime costs shouldn't be a thing regardless.)

---

The problem is that designing any high APM job is going to be punishing to high ping players -- you cannot eat your cake AND still have it too.
Even if you remove the Overheat window, you'd still have the Wildfire window which was designed with Overheat's APM boost in mind. The ping weight on MCH is reduced, but still exists within the kit -- unless you redesign Wildfire as well, but then you would unravel the necessity of Overheat creating fast action windows in the first place.

I'm all for OP's suggestion to reduce button bloat, but I think trying to make MCH more "ping friendly" might be overstepping a bit, inflating a simple QoL suggestion into a full rework.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Archwizard

The problem is that designing any high APM job is going to be punishing to high ping players -- you cannot eat your cake AND still have it too.

---

Not really, no. Actions per minute has nothing to do with it. The sole factor there is GCD-in-animations-time, much like the case with setting a good duration for a skill not to feel overly ping-punishing.

Again, though, without XIV's coding costing roundtrip ping atop the .5s animation lock, Overheated's 1.5 second GCDs would be enough to support double-weaving. (See FFXIVAlexander with effective ping set to 0; it can double-weave a Heat Blast GCD.)

Quote:

---

I'm all for OP's suggestion to reduce button bloat, but I think trying to make MCH more "ping friendly" might be overstepping a bit, inflating a simple QoL suggestion into a full rework.

---

That depends entirely on your view of what constitutes a "full" rework. Was Delirium "fully" reworked when it was put on stacks, instead of just getting scaled down to a 5s duration to fit its new 60s CD? Was that change, IR's, Bunshin's, and Requiescat's likewise "overstepping". Should new SMN have gotten a brief duration in which to cast its summon-based spells instead of stacks?

Ultimately it's just a matter of which is more fun for the most players. Durations give urgency, often at little frustration so long as they're not particularly susceptible to ping and are both well past a given GCD threshold at normal SkS and far enough away from their next GCD tier as not to encourage reaching it and thereby making it tight again. Personally, I prefer that for many skills, including even Blood Weapon (i.e., giving it 12s duration [effectively just under 11.5s], still 5 hits, but far more comfortable, over giving 5 stacks of effect). But, stacks come with added flexibility that would well suit MCH's theme, kit, and button-flow (especially since its unavoidable 1-2-3 combo still needlessly uses 3 separate keys and they are not replaced by Heat Blast).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IronIngot

So removing any button bloating and streamlining the burst would be something like this:

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CKNovel

Overheat starter and Heatblast can be on the same button, but the finisher needs to be on a separate button in the case you want to finish it early.

---

This. Turn Heat Blast into the finisher, too, on last charge, just for accessibility reasons, but also have the finisher as a separate button for early Overheated consumption.

Quote:

---

The dot is fluff at best.

---

I don't think a DoT is problematic, but generally the earlier, the better. The idea of a finisher is generally that it ought to... finish, as would befit finishing something off.

It'd make more sense to have the DoT on the opener instead.

I'd just be happy to see Wildfire trigger Hypercharge on activation.
AFAIK, we never use Wildfire without also triggering Hypercharge.
So it's just kind an awkward triple oGCD cast whenever it's Wildfire time.

On the topic of Hypercharges effect, why not have it change Split, Slug, Clean and Scattergun into Hypercharged versions you use once each with the 1.5s GCD and additional effects, then finish with Heat Blast resetting the Gauss/Rico cooldowns entirely.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sylve

I'd just be happy to see Wildfire trigger Hypercharge on activation.
AFAIK, we never use Wildfire without also triggering Hypercharge.
So it's just kind an awkward triple oGCD cast whenever it's Wildfire time.

---

You can even push it further:
Make it so Wildfire has no heat cost and triggers hypercharge.
Then remove Barrel Stabilizer because it now has no purpose.

Not only it's a QoL but it also fixes the rigid heat gauge.
If 2 buttons are meant to be always paired together, they merge them. They followed that for WAR and MCH old wildfire combo, why not for Barrel Stabilizer and Wildfire?
Is the desynchronize of the cooldowns done by design?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sylve

On the topic of Hypercharges effect, why not have it change Split, Slug, Clean and Scattergun into Hypercharged versions you use once each with the 1.5s GCD and additional effects, then finish with Heat Blast resetting the Gauss/Rico cooldowns entirely.

---

It's a good idea, faster 1 2 3 is always better than spamming 1 five times in a row.

I'd rather they just remove heat blast entirely, along with any other instance of "press the button 5 times in a row" on classes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CKNovel

It's a good idea, faster 1 2 3 is always better than spamming 1 five times in a row.

---

This would be fine, too, and even less bloated.

Hit skill, get x upgraded attacks. Sounds fine.

Only reason to do otherwise would be if, given the duration exceeding what's necessary for the number of shots, one would have reason to weave in un-upgraded shots within the period, but now that MCH lacks its unique combo mechanic (as it has since ShB's gutting), I don't see why that'd be necessary.