Machinist feels.. lackluster.

It has:

3 variations of drill, that do the exact same thing, one is cleave.
1 AOE ability (Not even a combo!) that is actually useable.
A set 1-2-3 combo with zero variation.

It does not:

Scale with Skillspeed or Direct hit due to hypercharge/reassemble.

Some skills are actually worthless:

Flamethrower - Does less damage than just pressing Scattergun, Atleast make it deal triple damage to enemies affected by Bioblaster.

Bioblaster - Shares a cooldown with Drill.. Why? Would it be so bad to have a DOT and Drill at the same time?


Your biggest hitting ability is something you don't even use yourself, your Automoton queen uses it when it expires.. HELLO!?

Please for the love of god rework MCH into something Unique that isnt just pressing 1-2-3 over and over again with a random variation of Drill inbetween.

Flamethrower deals 80 potency per second. If you triple it, that would be 240 pps.
1-2-3 combo deals respectively 80pps, 112pps and 144pps. Heatblast deals 120pps.

If you triple Flamethrower damage to ennemy affected by Bio Blaster, the single target rotation would include a "Stand still for 10 seconds every 60 seconds" which isn't acceptable.
Flamethrower is barely worth anything, sure, but it had more problem mechanically than damage wise.

The Automaton Queen has even more problem. To put it simply, they can't do anything with it as adding a 3rd finisher would be even more troublesome.
AQ "finish" phase would be longer, AQ has already trouble targeting the correct target, AQ AI isn't able to seek another target for its finisher and will shutdown before pile bunker/crown collider if the target is dead.

As for its AoEs, who care about the number of buttons?
If Air Anchor had Fall-off, Wildfire had fall off and Chain saw reduced fall off, that would be enough. Don't had buttons that will be only pressed in 1 kind of content.

MCH clearly needs some work, Flamethrower, Automaton Queen, charges on HC/Wildfire, buff it AoE damage and the lack of utility.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

If you triple Flamethrower damage to enemy affected by Bio Blaster, the single target rotation would include a "Stand still for 10 seconds every 60 seconds" which isn't acceptable.

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Standing still channeling flamethrower to let abilities reallign would actually be beneficial and allow you to use Skillspeed as a viable stat.

Right now its just a dead set boring rotation where you press the same 5 buttons over and over again with the odd OGCD until you get to burst phases.

Hell i would like Flamthrower to just be renamed to Ignite and interact with Bioblaster's DOT and make it increase in potency.

Definitely needs charges on HC/Wildfire. Also Automaton Queen is a right pain in some fights because there is no way to tell the thing to attack a different target if you are unfortunate enough to have invincible targets on the field. It hurts so bad when punchy robot starts hitting a darkened fire while it has invuln shields on.

Flamethrower definitely needs looking at, I don't mind the channelling itself, but I would give it synergy with Bio Blaster since they line up and it would give the ability more impact. I would also consider halving the duration, doubling the damage and maybe giving it the "Suzaku Kick" treatment, where you can push it again to get off a finishing blast. Flamethrower has the potential to be a highlight of MCHs AoE suite, they just need to give it some attention and have it synergize with the kit instead of being this strange skill that's just barely a gain over just using Scattershot.

As for Queen, they should really look at that AI, its a pain when you can hardly control where it goes, also the long summoning time can make it a pain to get it to fit in burst windows properly, I like Queen but it could use some work.

As for Wildfire, I'm not really sure what to do with this one, I definitely think it should have the potential to direct/crit and be AoE (like in PvP) I'd also say Air Anchor would be a good fit for AoE simply because the animation lends itself to it. You would need appropriate drop-off of course, but this would go a long way to improving MCHs AoE game.

Overall, I still enjoy MCH, but those are fairly easy areas where they could make positive adjustments.

I don't want to insult my mch, but I despise the Queen. I loved my turret. I want to place it and have it be useful. It's now the worst kind of pet - does nothing interesting, and I forget it's there. The Queen reminds me she's there, but I hate her, so that's not good.

The mch needs something more, definitely. I haven't played it as much in EW as I did in SHB, but I did get it to 90 where I was crushed that chainsaw in no way looked as I expected. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that.

I think I'd almost rather it be more like the class in GW2... engineer? I don't remember what it was called, but it had a lot of choices & little objects to fling out. Of course, when I played GW2, there was basically one build that was viable and it was boring (and I don't play GW2 anymore for that reason... Maybe it's great now...) Anyway - back to the point, it IS a bit dull. And the Queen annoys me. (her animation is weirdly slow & she's boring to look at.)

AOE feels like an after thought for MCH
Flamethrower is useless and Auto cross bow not only feels weak animation wise it doesn't even cut ricochet CD like heat blast.

also give Queen a self-destruct button as an Aoe alternative

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Originally Posted by Duskane

AOE feels like an after thought for MCH
Flamethrower is useless and Auto cross bow not only feels weak animation wise it doesn't even cut ricochet CD like heat blast.

also give Queen a self-destruct button as an Aoe alternative

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It's actually really tragic that we have a flamethrower, and it's something we probably shouldn't use. Painful. maybe - give the stupid queen a flamethrower!

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Scattergun does 150 ppgcd but grants a fifth of a use each of Hypercharge, which itself grants 4 AC casts, which means its effective ppgcd is [150+(.8(233.3-150)], or 216.6 ppgcd.

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It's 5 + 3 GCDs. Total the potency, divide by 8. 1450 / 8.

You should come out to 181.25. You don't cash in the potency without using the GCD time to use the Overheat.

This means your priority is Bioblaster > Chainsaw > Barrel Stabilizer Overheat > Flamethrower > Overheat > Scattergun.

Reassemble can adjust this somewhat (RChainsaw is technically your strongest upfront hit, but can miss some targets in certain packs), but Flamethrower has a place. It's just a very unexciting place.

I’ve said it in other places but I’ll say it again, give everything pertaining to battery Aoe fall off. Air anchor, hot shot, rook and Queen, just to make Aoe feel better. Alongside general improvements to the Rook and Queen, like having the timers not start counting down until they start attacking, and having the snapshotting happen when they’re summoned. Bioblaster and flamethrower synergy was already said, just to make the two skills feel better and make Aoe more engaging then spread shot city.
Personally, I would also like to see Reload and the ammo system come back and modified. Either make it into a stronger but still boring % buff to gcds and later change the 1-2-3 into higher potency gcds with pvp castbars, or have the 1-2-3 be changed to cause special effects, stuff like a dot every other reload, a pseudo-6.1 trick attack, and a pure potency attack. Something like that would at least make things more interesting

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

Standing still channeling flamethrower to let abilities reallign would actually be beneficial and allow you to use Skillspeed as a viable stat.

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No thank you.

For 2 main reasons:
-Standing still for 10 seconds, no job needs to do that, not even BLM. There are many cases and mechanics where it's not possible to stand 10 seconds still.
-10 seconds of doing nothing is, excuse my french, but garbage design. I'm playing XIV to press GCDs, oGCDs and executing mechanics, not to have a 10 second long "Vampire Survivor phase".

It's a Flamethrower, it should be strong on its own.
Flamethrower being empowered by Bio Blaster is among the worst ideas, only seconded by making Flamethrower the AoE variant of Air Anchor.

I'll never understand why our Bishop turret was taken away in Shadowbringers. Using just the Queen Automaton all the time doesn't make any sense! We should at least have one other turret/automaton thst actually focuses on AoE damage instead.

I also wish we could have our Rook Turret be a permanent pet at level 80 that follows us around and performs support fire when we attack and only disappears when we summon Queen Automaton. Would provide some nice visual identity compared to the other ranged dps and would just be cool to see and make sense that we'd have enough aether to canocially keep our small turret buddy around at all times since we now have enough to briefly summon and control a freaking robot now!

Also, I'll never understand what the devs are afraid of when it comes to just making MCH hit harder than Dancer and Bard. I don't even like playing MCH in dungeons and such because of how every goddam Dancer and Bard conpletely out dps me! I'm the freaking selfish ranged dps! Why are two support dps doing more freaking damage than me!? That's ridiculous!

Also, I wish we had our ranged circle AoE bomb throwing attack back that we used to have back in Heavensward. That was one of my favorite skills to use because...well, we could through a grenade that blew things up! Plus it gave Machinist more aesthetic identity back then when most of its attacks came from either its gun or the turrets it summoned. With the current crop of weapons MCH can pull out of nowhere and use, this would be a great time to bring that ability back! Hell, maybe even make it so it upgrades into a grenade launcher that does extra damage and even bigger explosions, hahaha!!! >xD

idea that would make the flamethrower and bioblast more useful. is instead of you using them you summon the turrets to use them. ether have it where you want it to be. then there is also that macro where you can place it on a target.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

If you triple Flamethrower damage to ennemy affected by Bio Blaster, the single target rotation would include a "Stand still for 10 seconds every 60 seconds" which isn't acceptable.
Flamethrower is barely worth anything, sure, but it had more problem mechanically than damage wise.

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Imagine a fuel gauge which can charge up to 10 seconds, and you then just have to weave in the dps in the rotation. You can interupt it at any point and also start it at any point. To promote standing still, damage increases over time (starting at 80, increasing by 10/15/20 every second, and if needed has a cap). Taking such risk should at least be rewarding to some degree. And especialy in this case having knowledge about boss mechanics can be very powerful

Alternatively, targets standing in the fire get all damage they receive increased by x% which then aids the team damage instead of its own.

There are multiple ways mechanics can be adjusted. And usualy abilities that identify a class are somewhat required to stay, even if they change a lot.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

Imagine a fuel gauge which can charge up to 10 seconds, and you then just have to weave in the dps in the rotation. You can interupt it at any point and also start it at any point. To promote standing still, damage increases over time (starting at 80, increasing by 10/15/20 every second, and if needed has a cap). Taking such risk should at least be rewarding to some degree. And especialy in this case having knowledge about boss mechanics can be very powerful

Alternatively, targets standing in the fire get all damage they receive increased by x% which then aids the team damage instead of its own.

There are multiple ways mechanics can be adjusted. And usualy abilities that identify a class are somewhat required to stay, even if they change a lot.

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There are so many problems with that:

In the case rDPS provided from Flamethrower is too high:
MCH Burst phase would be standing still, then actually using its own burst, insane gameplay.

In the case rDPS isn't high enough, regardless of the buff value
You will be forced to press Flamethrower during downtime to stackup the "fuel gauge" and to reach full potential for a burst phase.

This is a problem in TEA/DSR as it tends to have downtime with heavy mechanics. And by heavy mechanics, I mean you can't stand still for more than 3 seconds or you're wiping the team.
It has nothing to do with "skill", you always need to be on the move.

Standing still is a terrible idea regardless of the content, it's boring and doesn't pair well with MCH extremely poor mobility.
With that mechanic, MCH would be the least mobile job by a landslide. And it's already the least mobile job.