Would you like a single target Flamethrower for Machinist?

Imagine a Minigun. Deals 180 potency per turn and increases Heat Gauge by 5 per tick, totalling 1800 potency and 50 Heat Gauge in 10 seconds, which is more than your basic combo can possibly do, but not enough to ignore your tools. I don't know how Flamethrower works but this would snapshot party buffs. The drawback is that you can't move for 10 seconds, making the job significantly harder. Would you want this for Machinist?

I'd just want it to actually be DPS positive like...anywhere, mostly.

I'm not sure that's even the case in AoE situations presently and it's felt like a weird artifact of the pre-ShB MCH days.

Flamethrower has been really strange for a long time because it's seemed useless and like you are probably doing less damage with it, unless there's something I'm missing. It was advertised in one of the job actions trailers despite being useless. It doesn't seem to make sense.

Flamethrower ? You mean the machinist only emote ? :3

I would actually rather have an AoE energy builder. Nothing drops AoE dps like trying to weave in an energy builder with a single target attack on a group of enemies every what 20 seconds?.

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Originally Posted by Syln

Flamethrower ? You mean the machinist only emote ? :3

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If anything id love it if flamethrower had a finisher proc exactly like Blu's Phantom Flurry, like a fire explosion or something, all the better if it gave heat guage.

I'd like that but also want flamethrower to be worth using in the first place
having channeled abilities is something i feel is missing from ff14's combat

Flamethrower is so weird. It doesn't generate any gauge at all, so I feel bad ever using it even in aoe situations. if it generated heat gauge, that'd be nice. Or hell, maybe repurpose it and make it sort of like SAM's meditate, where you use it during moments where the enemy leaves the room to gain gauge, idk.

yah i'd rather they "fix" flamethrower before adding in another channeling ability

i actually do use flamethrower right now in dungeons only, usually each pull immediately after a boss so I can just have a nice 15 sec "not pushing any buttons" hand rest after those encounters.

but like others have said, it desperately needs to at least build heat gauge, with maybe a risk/reward for maintaining it the full 15 sec... like you get 5 heat every 3 ticks and if you hold it to completion you also get 20 battery. but if you're forced to move, or end it early you get nothing, or possibly only 10 battery

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Originally Posted by Rowde

yah i'd rather they "fix" flamethrower before adding in another channeling ability

i actually do use flamethrower right now in dungeons only, usually each pull immediately after a boss so I can just have a nice 15 sec "not pushing any buttons" hand rest after those encounters.

but like others have said, it desperately needs to at least build heat gauge, with maybe a risk/reward for maintaining it the full 15 sec... like you get 5 heat every 3 ticks and if you hold it to completion you also get 20 battery. but if you're forced to move, or end it early you get nothing, or possibly only 10 battery

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Thats why a finisher works, so you can pop it early if you got to move. A simple way of going about it would be giving a amount of battery guage as long as you pop it, but on top of that a buff that increases each tick of flamethrower, then finisher expends it all for heat guage depending on how many stacks of the buff is used.

They need to fix FT first. Have it generate heat and have it explode Bioblaster's dot for more damage.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'd just want it to actually be DPS positive like...anywhere, mostly.

I'm not sure that's even the case in AoE situations presently and it's felt like a weird artifact of the pre-ShB MCH days.

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It's DPS positive to Scattergun spam... As it's a 80 potency hit every second, compared to 150 every about 2.5 from Scattergun. It's main (and only) use is to throw Bioblaster and it on an AoE pull.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

They need to fix FT first. Have it generate heat and have it explode Bioblaster's dot for more damage.

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Or, have it disperse heat for a one time 30s AoE Dot.

That way you rotate heat between Autocrossbow and FT.

So let me get this straight. You want a skill where you don't have to do anything for 10 seconds? I'm starting to feel my brain coming out of my ears

A niche conal AoE that doesn't interact at all with your kit and is virtually never a damage gain and even then only by a pittance of potency and for about a few seconds total? Surely there's a Lv 90 Machinist lurking somewhere on here that could defend its vast usefulness.

This is not gonna bring anything to the topic, but the expression "single target flamethrower" made me laugh. It's like saying a "tactical nuclear strike". It's so antinomic.

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Originally Posted by VictorSpoils

A niche conal AoE that doesn't interact at all with your kit and is virtually never a damage gain and even then only by a pittance of potency and for about a few seconds total? Surely there's a Lv 90 Machinist lurking somewhere on here that could defend its vast usefulness.

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Nah, that's really all there is to it. It's a DPS increase over the basic AoE attack. If you have 50+ heat or any of your OGCDs available at all, it's a loss. So, pretty much the only time it'll be beneficial is during the second pull of each dungeon segment, once you're out of gas. Outside that its best hope for use is if you want to start stocking your other resources and can afford to be lazy with a pull. Thinking about it, I wouldn't be shocked if they built it around the notion that we'd only pull one group of mobs at a time. That'd effectively double the number of times we could use it, even if it's impractical. The other side of that coin is maybe they don't really know what to do with it because even if it were better, the times when MCH has no tools to burn vs multiple targets are rather sparse. It'd basically be tripping over its own feet. A better choice might be to get rid of its current function and turn it into the AoE version of Air Anchor that everyone wants, i.e. +20 battery and a fire DoT.

It would be cool if it ramped up in damage as it channeled. If it did something cool like that and they fix flamethrower to be worth it, I'd be on board.

No.

But I'd love a second gardening system specifically to beautify one's home rather than just harvest crops.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

They need to fix FT first. Have it generate heat and have it explode Bioblaster's dot for more damage.

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This would be the thing I'd look into doing to it. As it stands, we use Chainsaw every 60s, AA every 40, Drill every 20s. But, with a change along these lines, we could vary this up such that every 3rd drill (on the 1min mark, alongside Chainsaw) is actually replaced by a Bio+FT combo, akin to NIN swapping every 3rd Ninjutsu from a Raiton to a Suiton for Trick Attack. Something like:

FT: 60s CD, Ability (no longer channelled, just a regular OGCD)
Deals 150 potency to all enemies in a cone in front of you. Potency increased to 450 against targets affected by Bioblaster.

This would mean Bio+FT combined would be a total potency of 750, compared to Drill's 600 (and your two Reassembles in raidbuffs can go on CS/AA since Bio's DOT portion isn't affected by Reassemble). If people really want to keep it channelled for whatever reason, it can be made to be 150/450 as above, and then 50 per second of channelling after, so Scattergun is a gain but channelling exists for the sake of being a pseudo-emote or whatever