People misunderstanding of MCH and what it actually needs

Considering of how many people these days posting on the forum and Balance discord about how "useless" MCH is, I feel like there's some clarification that needs to be properly communicated to the dev team on what actually is the problem with MCH and not just saying "IT NEEDS MORE DAMAGE".

To begin with, no. It doesn't need more damage nor any potency buff will fix the problem with MCH. The overall issue with damage is not an inherent problem with MCH but a problem of the Phys Range class in general. Phys Range are supposed to be bottom of everything else because of the "mobility tax". You can disagree with this concept all you want but that is the fact and that is the current situation of Phys Range. MCH being a selfish dps should always be put in under quotation because it simply just means selfish dps for the Phys Range. I.e., It will always be the highest ADPS job compared to the other 2

So where does this high ADPS role in phys range puts them into?

1. Consistency. If you played MCH well, you are guaranteed to always do X amount of damage minimum regardless of your party comps. And this minimum amount of damage is ALWAYS more than enough to clear any content. Including Ultimate. Including Dragonsong. This is a fact and if any of you saying that this is not the case: Either you are just not good enough with the class or your party members are not good enough on their class. Changing to DNC or BRD will not solve your dps problems. Because both DNC and BRD value only shines on teams that can actually line up their burst properly. That is why most high-end groups are running DNC or BRD, because you don't need to question whether they are able to properly do rotation or not. It's not going to magically gives you an advantage if you suddenly change to DNC or BRD. If your dance partner dies, there goes your contribution down the drain for the fight. MCH doesn't have this problem. It's only a problem if you died or you mess up rotation. So if you're saying that people who are taking MCH is grieving people in Ultimate, look at your own job and see if you yourselves are pulling the weight or not.
   
2. Flexibility. Especially for ultimate, you have the ability to adjust and hold your burst timing depending if you need more burst or not. DNC and Bard simply do not have this flexibility to a degree because all you can afford is just pressing your 120s on cooldown. Example would be on Nidstinien phase where MCH don't need to completely waste every single resources on Nidstinien and can enter eyes with more resources. If there happens to be a damage down on a healer or weakness, then the MCH has the ability to then burst more in in nidstinien by using 100 robot, 3 heatblast during the buff timing. You can't save a run with technical or radiance because well the ones receiving your buffs are down in their damage by 25% at minimum.

So what is the problem with MCH? Well to begin with compared to its peers, why would MCH not have some sort of utility? Bard has paean and minne and repelling shot. Dance has en avant, improv and curing waltz. Why none for MCH? This is an actual scenario that happened to myself during transition to god king thordan and for some reason, the bleed ate 1 tick of my shield and I was the only person who died on that transition. Just because of one tick of bleed. None of which would happen with DNC with improv shields and regen or BRD buffing the shield healer with minne. Even if you think that having 2 utility and 1 mobility skill is way too much, BLM and SAM have manaward and third eye respectively. Literally MCH are the only class that does not have any sort of mitigation on themselves (Don't even start saying tactician is mitigation because its just a glorified Feint/Addle for phy range). Why? There is no literally no harm in giving MCH some sort of shield, sprint mitigation, or healing on themselves. We are literally being punished out of nothing. Even if you want to look at the source material for MCH (Edgar), theres still Noiseblaster, Flash, or Debilitator that they can use for additional utility. Maybe not in form of shields but inflicting damage reduction on the enemy.

Then there is also a myriad of other QoL problems that the dev has not listened too since ShB.
1) MCH Ping issues
2) God-awful AI for Queen and also how Queen snapshotted buffs.
3) Awful AOE rotation.
4) Reassemble being a glorified kaiten that messes with crit/dh buffs
5) Wildfire being one of the weakest 120s cd, that is exacerbated with ping problems and don't synergize with crit/dh buff again.

That is currently the problem with MCH. This is under their philosophy of making Phy Range the worst dps job period. If they want to continue down on this road, then they HAVE to fix the problems most MCH have been saying since ShB and don't response with "We don't know that MCH has ping problems"

The discussion of Phy Range not having enough damage is another design philosophy that I would support but considering that they are unable to listen to criticism so far with just the QoL stuff above, I wouldn't put much trust into it.

I'll never stop pointing this out:
Mobility tax makes no sense in 6.X context. It made sense before but now melee and caster gameplay are easier than before:
-The bosses hitboxes are insanely large
-Many mechanics are adjusted so that Melees still gets uptime.
-Positionnals are not a big loss anymore and True North exists.
-Bosses that flies away during heavy mechanics and come back after.
-Ranged attacks aren't combo breaker anymore.
-SMN exists with lot of utility and plays like a physical range.
-BLM gets more instant cast, a free charge on triple cast and has one of the best mobility tool.
-From E5S to E8S, the most movement heavy tier with the current design, it was casters who shined, not physical ranged. Even RDM could compete with Samurai. This tier showed that range is more valuable than mobility.

MCH has no utility but the DPS of a Support DPS, that's the problem.
It's up to SQEX to either increase the DPS or the utility. To create a value the MCH can bring in order to compete within the physical range role.

Even if you fixed MCH problem you listed, the ping issue the AQ AI, the AoE rotation, Reassemble, Wildfire...
MCH would remain a less valuable choice. Take RDM for example, it has low damage in DRS but do you see anyone complaining about it?
No, because it brings fast res and Magick Barrier, valuable assets that allows the RDM to shine beyond the DPS it brings.

Consistency? That's everyone's job.
Flexiblity? If you don't have a MCH, it doesn't mean the door is completely closed to you. Someone else can adjust their rotation, even rigid rotation.

There is 1 ranged spot to compete for, melee and caster can compete for a second spot.
Sure, you can go 2 phys ranged and clear the content, but that's willingly shooting yourself in the foot.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

I'll never stop pointing this out:
Mobility tax makes no sense in 6.X context. It made sense before but now melee and caster gameplay are easier than before:
-The bosses hitboxes are insanely large
-Many mechanics are adjusted so that Melees still gets uptime.
-Positionnals are not a big loss anymore and True North exists.
-Bosses that flies away during heavy mechanics and come back after.
-Ranged attacks aren't combo breaker anymore.
-SMN exists with lot of utility and plays like a physical range.
-BLM gets more instant cast, a free charge on triple cast and has one of the best mobility tool.

MCH has no utility but the DPS of a Support DPS, that's the problem.
It's up to SQEX to either increase the DPS or the utility. To create a value the MCH can bring in order to compete within the physical range role.

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"The overall issue with damage is not an inherent problem with MCH but a problem of the Phys Range class in general. Phys Range are supposed to be bottom of everything else because of the "mobility tax". You can disagree with this concept all you want but that is the fact and that is the current situation of Phys Range" << my exact wording

I'm not disagreeing with your point, but you're just spouting the problem within Phy Range. Not specifically MCH. And as I have mentioned, a total complete overhaul of the Phy Range concept is a welcome discussion but its not going to fix the short term problems nor its in anyway helpful to improve the current MCH because if they even have not listened to the simple quality of life under the current concept, why would I hope for them to overhaul their philosophy for the better within this expansion? All of that have more chance to change in the next expansion and that means we're stuck in this phase for the next 2 years. Even sounding that its a hopium at best.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

Even if you fixed MCH problem you listed, the ping issue the AQ AI, the AoE rotation, Reassemble, Wildfire...
MCH would remain a less valuable choice. Take RDM for example, it has low damage in DRS but do you see anyone complaining about it?
No, because it brings fast res and Magick Barrier, valuable assets that allows the RDM to shine beyond the DPS it brings.

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um... Yes? Which is exactly why I said the first problem is the very lack of utility for MCH even compared to its peers. And that still doesnt excuse the other problem that I have listed under the current itteration that needs to fixed (which is easily fixed btw compared to full overhaul). My point is that they don't even acknowledge this problem at the moment. This is a criticism from ShB. They have effectively ignored all of that for a good 2-3 years now.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

Consistency? That's everyone's job.

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IDK what are you trying to imply here other than the fact that everyone just needs to get good except that situation is not realistic practically speaking. Theres a reason why people are divided over certain parses level of xxth percentile. Its precisely because everyone have a different skill level that they need to get good at. MCH by its nature currently its a low floor low ceiling class (i.e. almost braindead) that you can play decently well and do a good amout of damage enough to clear anything. To put it very bluntly, DNC/BRD with 95th percently is unlikely not able to carry other DPS on the 50th below percentile because their kit is tied to the performance of that other DPS. Switching to MCH gives you more chance to clear because a MCH with 95th percentile is going to do way more compared to the other combination.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

Flexiblity? If you don't have a MCH, it doesn't mean the door is completely closed to you. Someone else can adjust their rotation, even rigid rotation.

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I never stated that the door is completely closed. I'm merely pointing out the comparison to BRD and DNC that people thinks the DPS problem is solved just because they change to this 2 jobs. No they dont. And MCH has an edge when it comes down to doing DPS compared to the other 2 which is the point Im already making as the highest ADPS compared to the 2

DNC > You're at the mercy of dance partner. Yes you can change DP but you're still not capable of adding additional burst that is in your command because flourish is the only additional burst and you are already bursting every single feather fan and saber dance that you have in CD. the change to DP also comes to the problem of "optimal" DP meaning that if you have a comp currently with NIN, DNC, RDM, and BLM for example, if your NIN is dead, BLM and RDM are not good DP. You don't change technical timing just to ensure you technical when the weakness is gone on Nin. you still do it on 120s cd.
BRD > Same problem as above just less focus on one person.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

There is 1 ranged spot to compete for, melee and caster can compete for a second spot.
Sure, you can go 2 phys ranged and clear the content, but that's willingly shooting yourself in the foot.

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Phy Range problem not MCH problems. Unless you change MCH to be more punishing like BLM you're not going to have this combination. And that is SE job iteration atm. Curse it all you want but I have made my point previously about this and this is the current iteration they belive to be complete

It is a thing though that a Selfish DPS needs to bring enough DPS to make up for the amount of utility its competing classes bring for the slot. MCH does not bring that, which means that yes its inherent problem can be solved by simply buffing its DPS to the point mobility tax effectively does not apply specifically to it.

Are there a lot of design issues that MCH needs fixed? Yes. One of those design issues is not doing enough DPS to warrant the Selfish DPS title. So either expand its utility options to make it fall in line with the others in the role... or remove what utility it does have (Tactician) and ramp up its damage to the point that it is indisputably the BLM/SAM of the Physical ranged.

I did not meant to go "against" your arguments but to offer another point of view.

About rDPS
I agree, rDPS outcome will depend on the DNC/BRD and on the rest of the team.
However, it's not a DNC/BRD problem but a team problem. They can play perfectly, they did their part.
You could argue the reverse situation, if a MCH is playing perfectly but the Ninja misses its Trick Attack, DNC misses its buffs and SCH forgot to push Strategem, the team DPS will suffer greatly.

Yes the MCH will do a nice colored number on a certain website, but the team performance will suffer.
And this is a teamgame, we play together to bring out the DPS, not the team playing against each other for colored numbers.

MCH could not care and summon the Queen at random, it will bring the same rDPS but the overrall team DPS will suffer.

About phys range, MCH problems
That is exactly the problem.
MCH doesn't works as a "pure DPS" because it's also a phys range.
Pure DPS have high personnal damage but low utility, phys range have low damage but good utility.
MCH just has all downsides with no upsides.

And as you pointed out, MCH doesn't even have self utility like manaward and third eye.
And we cannot count Tacticians as all ranged have Tacticians. I wished the trait reducing the cooldown to 90s would also have something else to bring differences between the all 3 tacticians.

Again about utility
It's again about "What does this job bring to the group?"
You got a BLM? Well you don't have SMN healing/res or Magick Barrier.
You got a RDM? Well it doesn't have the BLM damage but it has the valuable Magick Barrier.
You got a RPR? Well you have low damage but the valuable Arcane crest.

You have a MCH? Well you have a bad news and your team needs to work more for the party survival.

We have more than one solution.
I completely agree, if they slapped 2 new defensive on MCH, that would fix the problem until 7.0.
Also reduce the fall off from Chain saw, because in practice that's the only AoE MCH has for the whole DRS.

If MCH DPS was pumped up enough, I know for sure it would also give MCH a value for the job to stand for.

Now of course, there are the mechanical issues:
-Hypercharge still not on charges (I'm confused as to why it's not yet the case)
-Everything about the Automaton Queen, the list of problem it suffers from is massive.
-Everything about Wildfire.
-Everything about Flamethrower.

The balancing issues:
-Pure DPS but only against a single target. Pure crap in multi target.
-AoE on target except for Chain saw with a massive fall off and BB barely worth.

Those are problems but they're not critical right now. Except the Queen, that's a critical mess that needs to be reworked by 7.0.
As of now, MCH needs a value to compete with DNC/BRD. It can be raw DPS, it can be utility, since the game is limited to those two values.

I've mained MCH since HW, except for a cpl patches in Stormblood, and I remember when it had utility. I honestly miss the utility and would fine dealing lower dps if I felt like I was bringing some utility. I mean honestly; Mch are supposedly this highly mobile class with absolutely no mobility abilities outside of the shared role ability. I miss the old style of rook and bishop turrets and would personally like to see them return and expanded upon. Make flamethrower a turret you throw out that does a 360 aoe to, give us a grappling hook that will pull us to the target, a turret that throws up a shield over the target(s) or make AQ something seperate from the turrets and something that feels like theres an actual build up too. But Im also not a fan of carbuncles just sitting there doing nothing and dont share the Dev's dislike of pet classes.

I will say that while mch skill ceiling is low, it is the job with the second highest ABS , second to ninja. I think that one of the issues lies in that. Its a busy job that doesnt feel like youre doing anything. While also suffering from ping issues on top of that. The heat and battery gauge cycles are disjointed and Id like to see them tie into each other more. MCH does feel like its lost a lot of its flavor as expansions have come and gone.

I'd rather MCH be fun and engaging to play. And it isn't. And I'm tired of pretending it's not. OG MCH was where it was at.

They can either rework it or make adjustments so actions such as Flamethrower, Drill, Autocrossbow, Gauss Round, Ricochet generate Heat and Battery.

Bringing back an ammo system would be pretty hype too.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

I'd rather MCH be fun and engaging to play. And it isn't. And I'm tired of pretending it's not. OG MCH was where it was at.

They can either rework it or make adjustments so actions such as Flamethrower, Drill, Autocrossbow, Gauss Round, Ricochet generate Heat and Battery.

Bringing back an ammo system would be pretty hype too.

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IMO, the problem with old MCH was that you had 50s of boredom and 10s of dopamine.
And that 10 seconds of dopamine could be easily ruined by Flamethrower, packet loss or a lag.

SB MCH was:
-Useful to the team thanks to Dismantle, Palisade, Refresh and Hypercharge.
-Engaging during its burst with a fast and satisfying combo.
-Boring during filler phases
-Too much Micromanagement (Ammo, turret, gauss barrel)
-Heat was even less engaging, if I remember well you would often end at 90-95 heat before the next overheat window.
-Flamethrower working on a unique strange tick rate per second where a small packet loss could make you miss the Overheat window.

A lot of feedback was to fix the ping issue, have an "Overheat" button, removal of the gauss barrel.
And the strange part is that they did a lot of good things, bad things and left some problems untouched.
Hypercharge is still a ping issue, Flamethrower somehow remains untouched, Ammos could've stayed in a new form rather than the heat/battery gauge. Battery gauge could be a 60s cooldown, it would'nt change a thing.

I think if MCH gets reworked it's just going to be homogenized to the PvP playstyle which in actuality is just going to play like Bard and become very very basic. If there is a ping issue the solution I can see them looking at is to remove Hypercharge.

Primarily because right now the devs feel that every class needs a Fell Cleave phase.

There is a weird habit of way overdoing it when correcting relatively small problems.

I honestly really enjoyed Stormblood Machinist and found it really satisfying to execute, but it just felt like an impractical headache to main because of the bizarro "psychic Flamethrower tick prediction" required to play it effectively.

Slinging the turret back down in combat was actually fun for me. I just liked watching it happen each time.

And yeah, all the utility tools felt good to have.

All they really needed to do was modify the bizarre Flamethrower Overheat entry, and delete the strange 10s window without Gauss Barrel which felt pointless and gross.

It was good, it just needed the rough edges fixed.

Instead they dropped a nuke on it and replaced it with something superficially-amusing, but way less fun or satisfying. At least, in my opinion.

You kind of see the same story with EW Summoner: all it needed was some jank corrected with stuff like Phoenix's clipping, Egi lagginess, etc. Instead they blew it up and restarted with something cruder and less satisfying.

My personal take is that MCH could have a dps boost, yeah... But not as it is. It should be the reward of a complex skill ceiling, and unlike BLM where the challenge is the encounter itself, the challenge should be a complex rotation, branching combos, things to watch for, etc.

But yeah, I also agree that it needs personal utillity. Literally every other job has, even the "selfish" ones. BLM again, got a beefy shield, got aetherial manipulation always usable, for example.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

My personal take is that MCH could have a dps boost, yeah... But not as it is. It should be the reward of a complex skill ceiling, and unlike BLM where the challenge is the encounter itself, the challenge should be a complex rotation, branching combos, things to watch for, etc.

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On paper yes, but think about it. What jobs are actually hard?
Only BLM is hard and it's far from being overly complex.

MCH has a problem that its rotation is not engaging and has too much automated tools.
Wildfire is just empowered Hypercharge, as long as you use Hypercharge correctly you can't miss Wildfire.
Automaton Queen is fully automated, the only thing you do is summoning it.

MCH doesn't exactly lack difficulty, but it definitely lacks interactions as the rotation plays by itself.
It's also the case for other jobs like Samurai, other than collecting stickers and spending them, you'll never miss your rotation.

The complexity and DPS relationship is already flawed from the start when you have jobs like SMN. Otherwise it should be the lowest DPS job.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

On paper yes, but think about it. What jobs are actually hard?
Only BLM is hard and it's far from being overly complex.

MCH has a problem that its rotation is not engaging and has too much automated tools.
Wildfire is just empowered Hypercharge, as long as you use Hypercharge correctly you can't miss Wildfire.
Automaton Queen is fully automated, the only thing you do is summoning it.

MCH doesn't exactly lack difficulty, but it definitely lacks interactions as the rotation plays by itself.
It's also the case for other jobs like Samurai, other than collecting stickers and spending them, you'll never miss your rotation.

The complexity and DPS relationship is already flawed from the start when you have jobs like SMN. Otherwise it should be the lowest DPS job.

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It also depends on how hard you're talking to... To me, for example, MNK is hard because you have 2 timers to keep track of, and the branching combo, as well as the cooldowns and the correct blitz usage. I can't say that current MCH is on the same level at all; that's the kind of difficulty I'm referring to. Even with muscle memory, I still need to be attentive on MNK not to let anything fall off.

They could just make the tools interact with other actions, or give a proper alternative heated rotation instead of heat blast x5... They could add more micromanagement to the Queen now that pets can be a bit more responsive... They could add more heat micromanagement.

Somepoint here makes sense, but for some I'll have a hard time to agree with...


First of all, when you choose a class you'll have strength and weakness. For exemple like BLM, You hit like a freaking truck, BUT you have poor mobility overall (Yeah I know you have triple cast and thing like that, but compared to other, it's not like they have "Mobility") and you must place your leylines and stick in it, which restrain your movement even further.

Actually, the class who represent the "Mobility Tax" the most is the BLM, and it's a pretty good exemple.

Other "Tax" exist, and utility Tax is a things, but it has an other weight.

Samourai is an other exemple, and share this one with the BLM, as they have absolutely nothing for the team and are Selfish DPS. Absolutely no utility is given by these 2... And so do the MCH, nothing to give (Role action can't be taken into account because it's shared in the role, all other DPS will have it, and the 10% mitig is common to Ranged, can't be taken into account either)

The mobility of the Samourai isn't really beneath the MCH, with dash in and dash out, plus all the melee uptime strat... the only things that can slow the samourai is the 1.3 sec Midare Setsugekka and Ogi : Namikiri cast. but that's it, nothing comparable to a BLM.

With these we can already see that MCH can't be boosted DPS wise by the "Mobility Tax"... But with the "Utility Tax" it's a completely different story. Therefore, only two solution exist. Either boost MCH DPS by a a whooping 5% in order to close the gap significantly (A certain site give the best machinist on Hesperos II at 8k5 rDPS, while the bard jump at a whooping 9k4 (DPS Given calculated around 2k), and the best Danser at 8k9 (Dps give calculated around 1.5k) Or give strong utility tool that will allow the MCH to rivalise with his Bard/Dancer counterpart.

Dancer and Bard don't suffer from mobility at all, they have exactly the same mobility (If not even greater) than the MCH, along with strong utility (Offensive and Defensive) which the MCH clearly lack.

Taking this into account, people have little to zero reason to actually choose a Machinist over a Bard or Dancer who can boost the group far stronger than what a MCH can output...

So it gives somethings like this :

Mobility : DNC > BRD > MCH
Offensive Buff Potential : BRD > DNC > MCH
rDPS : BRD > DNC > MCH

If you take a look at numbers, Ranged DPS have great disparity between numbers.

For exemple, at rDPS Bard and Dancer outmatch the MCH by 1.5-2k DPS, which is enormous.
But in term of nDPS (Neutral DPS, no buff counted at all), MCH is stronger by 1.2K

(Number taken on the top classment player)

We can clearly see that the "Ceiling" of the MCH is significantly lower than the others and need to be boosted by at least 300 pts (and that would be a bare minimum).