Machinist: The "Selfish" Physical Ranged that is not allowed to be Selfish

So, there's still a lot of problems with Machinist, and going into this expansion, I was thinking that it'd be able to actually become a job that can be big damage like its brother and sister BLM and SAM, since they've been left in the dust since Shadowbringers.

While BLM and SAM feel satisfying to play, just looking at MCH on paper feels...bad. While we consider Mobility to be a tax for Ranged, I feel like after they changed the job in Endwalker, they were missing something important - or should we say, a lot of things.

- Auto Crossbow is garbage. The fact that you also now have both Double Check and Checkmate with the SAME POTENCY AS AUTO CROSSBOW and now AoE fall-off makes this attack rather underwhelming. It requires 5+ enemies to even be a gain potency-wise compared to the Resets that Blazing Shot does. An AoE should not do that when we already have AoE abilities on jobs that do not go above 3+; also, can we please allow Auto Crossbow to reset Double Check and Checkmate even a little bit? It's jarring when you're so used to single target and on Auto Crossbow you don't get resets for your burst...

- Flamethrower is still extremely lackluster. 80 Potency for a channel that doesn't even generate Heat anymore for us since they scrapped that idea after Stormblood. 80p/s is ok, but you'd rather do anything else - like Scattergun in AoE. Flamethrower's only use now? AoE, and even in that department it sucks. For one, being a channel that doesn't even deliver on damage and gets outclassed by your basic AoE ability(that also generates HEAT!) shows that this should not have survived to the next expansion without a serious rework - even just a return to old Flamethrower with Heat generation would've been great.

- The one I will really drive home is Damage. MCH, in hindsight, has no buffs of any kind to allow the party to deal more damage. What MCH brings in terms of utility is the 15% DR and a 10% Damage Reduction. That's it. How is it not allowed to deal a large amount of damage when you have jobs like BRD/DNC that run a support niche with their constant suite of buffs and utilities? MCH has none of that. I can easily look at VPR and tell you how much utility it has: None, bar Feint. While Dismantle is essentially a good mitigation tool, it does not help MCH play into what its job is supposed to FEEL like. It's supposed to be selfish because it has very little raid utility compared to its betters, BRD/DNC, which provide more damage overall for their team; why is it not allowed to be selfish when this is an expac that could definitely have allowed it to be?

If anything, I wish that the developers could put some sense into MCH as a job because right now? Along with the rest of the Physical Ranged, MCH is truly bottom of the barrel when it comes to picking which flavor of "1% All Stats Buff" you want.

MCH hasn't ever been good since it was just Gunbard, and it likely never will be good again soon as Squeenix despises anything thats not a melee.

For the love of big boy numbers, can WF crit, dh or direct crit please? Its sad seeing its damage number be a limp noodle.

Big damage is a problem shared by the whole rphys roster. MCH is not faring worse than other rphys jobs (even it has had low bumps putting it dead last here and there in the game's history since shb). Pedantic note: ACB is not a gain at 4 targets, it just turns equal to blazing shot. The gain happens at 5+.

But I do agree with the feeling. If anything I'd like them to give us some battery AoE options. Even if just adding rook as an AoE option would go a great way to make it suck less. And it's not like it's going to make the job OP in AoE when you take a look at pictomancer or summoner...

Job not only needs a rework but all Physical range should have some sort of structure of Risk and Reward..

How you can balance range job with 0 casting?

I am not saying that Phy range should have a cast but the current state are just bad

How would people feel about mch becoming the only phys ranged with cast times?
Since bard/dancer have buffs, their low dps is more justified
but giving mch cast times (not every ability mind you) would ideally allow them to tune mch around sam/viper/blm levels
i personally think the ranged phys tax is stupid as hell, but they seem adamant about keeping it.

I'll repeat myself like a broken record but MCH changes in DT are fantastic. What is lackluster is what has not changed.
Blazing shot feels great to land, Checkmate and double check are cool, Excavator and Full Metal Field are very pleasant.

But we're still with Wildfire not doing aoe damages, Automaton Queen I'm not going to list all its issue again, Flamethrower is as fun as an emote, we still flip for no reason...
And of course as you mentioned, MCH suffers an identity crisis when it's a pure DPS in a role classified as support DPS.

I think DT MCH is the best iteration but held back by its old and outdated tools.

For the MCH selfish approach to actually have them much higher in the metrics (talking about Rdps here), they would have to drastically increase the complexity of the job, pretty much the same relationship from BLM to SMN, or else nobody would want to take DNCs or BRDs in the phys ranged slot.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

For the MCH selfish approach to actually have them much higher in the metrics (talking about Rdps here), they would have to drastically increase the complexity of the job, pretty much the same relationship from BLM to SMN, or else nobody would want to take DNCs or BRDs in the phys ranged slot.

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Yet in terms of complexity, BLM's only layer of complexity is Thunder DoTs, Timer upkeep, and Positioning being its mainstay with hard cast GCDs greater than your Recast. MCH doesn't have those drawbacks, but also doesn't bring anything forward to the table like the other two ranged do - and if I remember someone stating on the forums a while back, complexity =/= damage. VPR in particular takes the cake on that one.

Also in hindsight, rDPS isn't the main metric you should be looking at for MCH - we should be looking at nDPS. That is where we need to gauge MCH's problems from in regards to damage output, since the other two ranged rely on the rDPS metric to matter due to the nature of their buffs they provide. As said before, the only utility that it brings to the table is Dismantle - a 10% Damage reduction that's essentially Reprisal. How does that amount to anything considering survivability is something that we already see plenty of in current Tank/Healer kits?

Mch seems in a decent spot. per tradition, it will probably be drip fed 10-20 potency boosts every major patch until 8.0.

I wish they'd let us have Automaton Queen out full time.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

Yet in terms of complexity, BLM's only layer of complexity is Thunder DoTs, Timer upkeep, and Positioning being its mainstay with hard cast GCDs greater than your Recast. MCH doesn't have those drawbacks, but also doesn't bring anything forward to the table like the other two ranged do - and if I remember someone stating on the forums a while back, complexity =/= damage. VPR in particular takes the cake on that one.

Also in hindsight, rDPS isn't the main metric you should be looking at for MCH - we should be looking at nDPS. That is where we need to gauge MCH's problems from in regards to damage output, since the other two ranged rely on the rDPS metric to matter due to the nature of their buffs they provide. As said before, the only utility that it brings to the table is Dismantle - a 10% Damage reduction that's essentially Reprisal. How does that amount to anything considering survivability is something that we already see plenty of in current Tank/Healer kits?

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But relying on rdps to matter is DNC and BRD's premises anyway, if you compare them with ndps, MCH will go way ahead, as shown in the data we have so far. A fair comparison must be all of the damage contribution in mind.

The whole 'selfish' approach to MCH seems much more encapsulated in the rphys bubble, since their rDPS values are similar. In the end, all boils down to whether or not you trust your whole team (BRD) / dance partner (DNC) to pull their weights or not 'outsourcing' your full dps contribution (MCH).

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Originally Posted by Raikai

But relying on rdps to matter is DNC and BRD's premises anyway, if you compare them with ndps, MCH will go way ahead, as shown in the data we have so far. A fair comparison must be all of the damage contribution in mind.

The whole 'selfish' approach to MCH seems much more encapsulated in the rphys bubble, since their rDPS values are similar. In the end, all boils down to whether or not you trust your whole team (BRD) / dance partner (DNC) to pull their weights or not 'outsourcing' your full dps contribution (MCH).

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Yet we need to look outside the rphys bubble you state, so to speak. As is, we already are running the problem of a Caster Meta and pushing Phys Ranged out. Sure, they'll be losing 15% Mit and a 1% All Stats from Ranged not existing in parties, but with how much damage Casters have from Pictomancer(which is prolly getting nerfed) or utilities from SMN now? Ranged might as well not exist anymore. MCH most of all considering it doesn't contribute as much as BRD/DNC in this regard.

Even looking at hard data, the job feels unrefined, as stated with issues regarding Queen, Flamethrower, and ACB in this thread. SE can try and argue about taxes for things, but this in fact makes the role begin to turn obsolete. What purpose does the Ranged role hold if PCT has as much utility and superior damage? Buffs? Utility? We've essentially slid back into Shadowbringers' first raid tier in this sense, considering the fact that 2x Caster had taken up residence when people were discussing the 1% Buff back during that time to keep Ranged relevant.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

But relying on rdps to matter is DNC and BRD's premises anyway, if you compare them with ndps, MCH will go way ahead, as shown in the data we have so far. A fair comparison must be all of the damage contribution in mind.

The whole 'selfish' approach to MCH seems much more encapsulated in the rphys bubble, since their rDPS values are similar. In the end, all boils down to whether or not you trust your whole team (BRD) / dance partner (DNC) to pull their weights or not 'outsourcing' your full dps contribution (MCH).

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NDPS is DPS without any party buffs taken in account. MCH, SAM and VPR are basically on NDPS by default, you can compare the numbers.
DNC and BRD on NDPS are at disadvantage as you take away the damage brought from their buff.

However if we compare jobs on NDPS, we can see which jobs would benefit better from raid buff.
Viper and Samurai are at the top, which is natural but MCH is 9th among all DPS... Which means a melee that isn't a pure DPS would scale better on buffs, not MCH, a pure DPS.
That's the paradox, MCH should be at the top 4 of the NDPS chart but isn't.

The phys range are in their bubble but in that bubble they are fighting for one single spot in the bigger bubble. And the winner will always be the one that fits in the bigger bubble.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

For the MCH selfish approach to actually have them much higher in the metrics (talking about Rdps here), they would have to drastically increase the complexity of the job, pretty much the same relationship from BLM to SMN, or else nobody would want to take DNCs or BRDs in the phys ranged slot.

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Did you just say that BLM is complex? BLM has 5 buttons. Its rotation is as hard as a healers. Adapting that super basic rotation to a fight mechanic is what makes it "hard".

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Originally Posted by Lanvaldear

Did you just say that BLM is complex? BLM has 5 buttons. Its rotation is as hard as a healers. Adapting that super basic rotation to a fight mechanic is what makes it "hard".

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MCH's ST rotation has the same amount of buttons as BLM's lol (not that number of buttons correlates with complexity anyway).

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Originally Posted by rewd

MCH's ST rotation has the same amount of buttons as BLM's lol (not that number of buttons correlates with complexity anyway).

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It has a few more if you count hypercharge and Ricc/Gauss or w/e they're called now. It also has twice the APM as BLM.
I'm not saying that MCH is hard by any means, but saying that BLM is complex, especially with how hard they're trying to set its rotation in stone is just wrong.

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Originally Posted by Tunda

Job not only needs a rework but all Physical range should have some sort of structure of Risk and Reward..

How you can balance range job with 0 casting?

I am not saying that Phy range should have a cast but the current state are just bad

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I've already said it in another thread but I'll reiterate, and perhaps this is a hot take, but I do think way harsher punishment for dying could be a path worth exploring.

But ultimately I'd like something proper to the role. I don't know what. Rotational complexity and rng/priority on the fly used to be a thing for rphys, but they simplified BRD, removed all RNG and ammo from MCH (????), and made DNC more and more braindead since EW.

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

How would people feel about mch becoming the only phys ranged with cast times?
Since bard/dancer have buffs, their low dps is more justified
but giving mch cast times (not every ability mind you) would ideally allow them to tune mch around sam/viper/blm levels
i personally think the ranged phys tax is stupid as hell, but they seem adamant about keeping it.

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This is ignoring the fact that DNC and BRD aren't faring better or worse than MCH. There is no lower or higher dps justification. What matters is cDPS and it's comparable in the same ballpark right now. If DNC and BRD don't need a buff, then neither does MCH. On the opposite, if MCH needs a buff, then so do BRD and DNC. There is no in between. If the problem is that MCH is a selfish dps that doesn't compete with other selfish jobs (SAM VPR BLM), then BRD and DNC don't compete with other raid buffing jobs as well (MNK, DRG, NIN, etc). It's tomato and tomato, but i'll concede that DNC and BRD are more appreciated because they tend to bring the bigger raid buffs that melee selfish jobs can usually appreciate more, but that's just that, that's a bandaid, and it doesn't bring BRD and DNC even remotely on par with any other melee job either.

( if anything the irony is that EW/DT SMN has been doing the same output than rphys for better support with raise and literally zero skill ceiling... )

I don't know about cast times. If I wanted cast times I'd go play a caster. But there is definitely an argument being made to introduce some charged skills like iajutsu is on SAM. But this will hardly make a dent in the mobility of the job nor the constraints it will bring to it.

In practice, Physical range already pays the risk by having less defensive stats and HP and no personal defensive. Viper is the exception, similar defense and no defensive.
We also need to take in account that MCH will get outclassed by BRD and DNC as more gear will be introduced, the efficiency of the buffs will only get higher.

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Originally Posted by Lanvaldear

Did you just say that BLM is complex? BLM has 5 buttons. Its rotation is as hard as a healers. Adapting that super basic rotation to a fight mechanic is what makes it "hard".

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Complex in the sense of its a ranged that can fail and be punished for failing and can't move while attacking. It's not hard from a button pushing standpoint but hard from every other gameplay stand point competitively to pretty much all DPS.

You know what SE could do if they actually wanted us to have fun? Uncap Wildfire from 6 GCDs. We'd be able to do some skill expression with double hypercharge windows there.

But they won't because that would be... non standard.

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Originally Posted by Valence

You know what SE could do if they actually wanted us to have fun? Uncap Wildfire from 6 GCDs. We'd be able to do some skill expression with double hypercharge windows there.

But they won't because that would be... non standard.

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Imagine if FMF could be Reassembled and just hit the primary target like 10 times.

Ratta tatta tatta

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Originally Posted by Valence

You know what SE could do if they actually wanted us to have fun? Uncap Wildfire from 6 GCDs. We'd be able to do some skill expression with double hypercharge windows there.

But they won't because that would be... non standard.

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I just wish WF could crit/DH. That would be cool.

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Originally Posted by Valence

You know what SE could do if they actually wanted us to have fun? Uncap Wildfire from 6 GCDs. We'd be able to do some skill expression with double hypercharge windows there.

But they won't because that would be... non standard.

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HW Wildfire was pretty fun though very inconsistent. I wonder how it woul of been under the current raidbuff meta.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

For the MCH selfish approach to actually have them much higher in the metrics (talking about Rdps here), they would have to drastically increase the complexity of the job, pretty much the same relationship from BLM to SMN, or else nobody would want to take DNCs or BRDs in the phys ranged slot.

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I think you're forgetting the fact that in stormblood when mch was strong, double phys ranged was viable. I don't think it's fair that melee and caster can double slot but not phys ranged. This is despite them having a selfish dps that could use its peers buffs to the fullest if it were allowed to function like BLM and SAM. I think the mobility value is INSANELY inflated by ego and bias in the raid and ex trial scene but i understand the detriment of ranged castless nukes in a FATE setting
. (Looking at you BLU...) . Lets not sugar coat it melees are not punished nearly as harshly for missing positionals or disengaging from bosses as stormblood and prior. You no longer bleed TP by existing. As long as its not the same job let people fill the last dps slot with whatever role they like.

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

HW Wildfire was pretty fun though very inconsistent. I wonder how it woul of been under the current raidbuff meta.

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That was the great thing about HW/SB WF. It felt great to pull off not only because of the demential nuke it was comparatively to anything else in the game, but also because it actually rewarded you for everything you put inside, and it worked well because we had rng procs and it was NOT fixed, and introduced a lot of player agency around it. Currently it just checks if you have the correct amount of GCDs, which is extremely underwhelming.

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

How would people feel about mch becoming the only phys ranged with cast times?
Since bard/dancer have buffs, their low dps is more justified
but giving mch cast times (not every ability mind you) would ideally allow them to tune mch around sam/viper/blm levels
i personally think the ranged phys tax is stupid as hell, but they seem adamant about keeping it.

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See no advangte with that. Ok, the cast time could be justifyed as a form of re-load the gun or the device at the hips.
But, given him to much cast time, would make him practicly into a caster to (ok, it could be similary to Samurai or Reaper, who has some casting to).

In addition, remind me this very much at the time, where Bard had exactly that (i heared, it had a time, where he used mp and had a lot of casting time to).

Mch could need some rework with the skills (flamethrower feels useless, you press it one time and can do nothing for some seconds). But making him a caster, wouldnt work good (i liked the proc system, back at the hw times, but that has dancer now and at part, the archer to)

If people want to play casters, they can go play... casters, you know. They don't exactly come in a shortage, there is currently 3 casters and 4 healers in the game.

MCH could maybe take inspo from picto and have casting that's to prepare a strong move with multiple uses like loading your gun with grenades or something for example.
Maybe having a casting but you can move weaponskill like PvP could work too

If SE do not bring this job good dmg as selfish, then bring defense utility better than other phys range.

MCH is fine as is. Letting the drunks on the dev team make more unecessary changes would be horrific. It's a pure dps job, like pict, blm, mnk, drg, sam, rpr, and vpr. Where are the calls to make all those jobs buffers? All the suggestions here, especially the adding cast timers, would make mch a fucking mess and you would lose a job until 8.0. leave mch alone or get better at playing it. You dont need to use flamethrower, its a fun skill to have for times when you're not sucking off a bard because you think you need to buff everyone with a magic potentcy buff despite no mages in the party.

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

MCH could maybe take inspo from picto and have casting that's to prepare a strong move with multiple uses like loading your gun with grenades or something for example.
Maybe having a casting but you can move weaponskill like PvP could work too

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sounds like you should just play picto and leave the non-fotm jobs to more experienced players

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Originally Posted by Keichi

See no advangte with that. Ok, the cast time could be justifyed as a form of re-load the gun or the device at the hips.
But, given him to much cast time, would make him practicly into a caster to (ok, it could be similary to Samurai or Reaper, who has some casting to).

In addition, remind me this very much at the time, where Bard had exactly that (i heared, it had a time, where he used mp and had a lot of casting time to).

Mch could need some rework with the skills (flamethrower feels useless, you press it one time and can do nothing for some seconds). But making him a caster, wouldnt work good (i liked the proc system, back at the hw times, but that has dancer now and at part, the archer to)

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play a caster if you're so down bad for having to stand in place. Mch is not a jerk it in the corner kind of job, its meant to be a ranged job that can move.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

While BLM and SAM feel satisfying to play, just looking at MCH on paper feels...bad. While we consider Mobility to be a tax for Ranged, I feel like after they changed the job in Endwalker, they were missing something important - or should we say, a lot of things.

- Auto Crossbow is garbage. The fact that you also now have both Double Check and Checkmate with the SAME POTENCY AS AUTO CROSSBOW and now AoE fall-off makes this attack rather underwhelming. It requires 5+ enemies to even be a gain potency-wise compared to the Resets that Blazing Shot does. An AoE should not do that when we already have AoE abilities on jobs that do not go above 3+; also, can we please allow Auto Crossbow to reset Double Check and Checkmate even a little bit? It's jarring when you're so used to single target and on Auto Crossbow you don't get resets for your burst...

- Flamethrower is still extremely lackluster. 80 Potency for a channel that doesn't even generate Heat anymore for us since they scrapped that idea after Stormblood. 80p/s is ok, but you'd rather do anything else - like Scattergun in AoE. Flamethrower's only use now? AoE, and even in that department it sucks. For one, being a channel that doesn't even deliver on damage and gets outclassed by your basic AoE ability(that also generates HEAT!) shows that this should not have survived to the next expansion without a serious rework - even just a return to old Flamethrower with Heat generation would've been great.

- The one I will really drive home is Damage. MCH, in hindsight, has no buffs of any kind to allow the party to deal more damage. What MCH brings in terms of utility is the 15% DR and a 10% Damage Reduction. That's it. How is it not allowed to deal a large amount of damage when you have jobs like BRD/DNC that run a support niche with their constant suite of buffs and utilities? MCH has none of that. I can easily look at VPR and tell you how much utility it has: None, bar Feint. While Dismantle is essentially a good mitigation tool, it does not help MCH play into what its job is supposed to FEEL like. It's supposed to be selfish because it has very little raid utility compared to its betters, BRD/DNC, which provide more damage overall for their team; why is it not allowed to be selfish when this is an expac that could definitely have allowed it to be?

If anything, I wish that the developers could put some sense into MCH as a job because right now? Along with the rest of the Physical Ranged, MCH is truly bottom of the barrel when it comes to picking which flavor of "1% All Stats Buff" you want.

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Have you considered that MCH isnt supposed to be a copy of bard or dnc? maybe its meant to be its own job that focuses on damge rather than being a bitch who needs to boost others to be viable

[QUOTE=Valence;6556124]I've already said it in another thread but I'll reiterate, and perhaps this is a hot take, but I do think way harsher punishment for dying could be a path worth exploring.

we dont need ffxiv to become wow. really not ok with sacrificing women at se to rape, sa, and suicide just to have jap wow

I'm no number genius, but simply slapping an extra 200 potency on Full Metal Machinist does not sound like it's going to have a significant impact on MCH's overall DPS.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'm no number genius, but simply slapping an extra 200 potency on Full Metal Machinist does not sound like it's going to have a significant impact on MCH's overall DPS.

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No, it's a buff on the 2 min window but it's very weak, you can expect a 0.7% DPS buff?
I don't think Dawntrail will see a removal of the tax anyway.

The devs clearly don't care about physical ranged players at this point. Just read the explanation on the job guide and how it makes absolutely no sense with the numbers they did and how MCH and DNC only got one change each. "Several Actions" they state along with "Balance of DPS between physical and magical ranged jobs" when no Physical ranged is even on the same planet as PCT.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

I don't think Dawntrail will see a removal of the tax anyway.

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Even with the movement tax MCH dps should be on par with jobs like DRG, NIN, MNK, PIC. These jobs all should get taxed for utility, just like MCH gets taxed for movement.

MCH still kissing the floor compared to other DPS, it's DPS output is horrible for a selfish job. A single potency increase won't satisfy playing the job at all, when other jobs can do much more. Especially when you're considering to run savage first weeks and people start to exclude certain jobs from PF.
I don't know why you hate MCH so much, SE. But for real, stop ignoring the job already. You get feedback, then use it already.

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

HW Wildfire was pretty fun though very inconsistent. I wonder how it woul of been under the current raidbuff meta.

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It was way better in SB.

When I said uncapping from 6 GCD I didn't mean to change it back to SB and HW however. I just said, remove the cap to 6 GCDs so we can do double hypercharges and get a 7GCD wildfire. It favors skill expression within the current model well.

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Originally Posted by Valence

If people want to play casters, they can go play... casters, you know. They don't exactly come in a shortage, there is currently 3 casters and 4 healers in the game.

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Four casters, you forgot SAM.