Shots Fired: A Machinist Guide

[airshowboat]

[QUOTE=Leeora;3130926

Also I watched the youtube video that was posted a few days ago thinking that was the most smooth I have seen a MCH work. I asked the person through youtube what rotations and what not they were doing to pull that off, but got no response. After more of the stuff I described earlier being encountered I decided to post on here so maybe I could get a better understanding/justification of things with the class.[/QUOTE]

I would suggest getting the ACT parser to check how you are doing compared to other dps. The front page has a really good opener (I've had an opening WF hit at 7183 using the opener). Other than the opener, it's keeping hotshot and leadshot up at all times and using CDs as they come up. Exception being blood for blood, delay it 10 seconds to use with hawk eye, rapid fire, and wildfire. It's important to know when you have time during the fight to pull off the WF combo. I hate when my WF lands when the boss is invincible

[Ryaz]

Right now it's just not leading to a consistent damage gain, and you're really just busting your stones for no good reason.

I was trying to go the extra mile and only have GB up when Gauss Round was up (and Ricochet, Reload and buffs), which was every 20 seconds or so. Which means I was putting it on and taking off in 20 second intervals. Just wasn't worth the effort. Lol.

[SuzakuCMX]

Just using the i180 weapon, no hive yet. Otherwise 183 in total.

I just can't see the hive weapon being that high of a difference as such I'm being more critical on myself.

Hive Musketoon Item
Physical Damage: 65
Magic Damage: 50
Delay: 2.64
Auto-Attack: 57.2
DPS: 21.67

Kunitomo Kai
Physical Damage: 63
Magic Damage: 49
Delay: 2.64
Auto-Attack: 55.44
DPS: 21

2 weapon damage is a lot, it also has 8 more DEX and 10 more VIT and a ton more SS. We don't know how much DET is worth because it was apparently severely nerfed in 3.0, so it's likely that the DET difference in the two weapons is a lot less than the SS, Dex, and WD differences total.

So go for the Hive weapon or stop complaining about how your DPS is lower than other MCH's.

[Ryaz]

So, looking at the Q&A, here was a question about MCH:

Q17. It feels like machinist can't deal steady damage. Could you tell us how you envisioned machinst in battle?

A17. Essentially, you will continuously use Lead Shot and Hot Shot. You’ll want to use them when you get a proc. Machinist has many actions with buffs, so by gaining these buffs and using Wild Fire, you will be able to deal a large amount of damage. Additionally, as you get used to the future content, it will be important to decide which buffs to use while fighting.

What do you think? It seems like he's saying we're made to be a burst class and not really deal steady damage. Not sure if there's a translation error about using Hot Shot or Lead Shot when we get a proc (I'm assuming he meant Slug and Clean).

I think the only buff we'd really have to worry about in future content would be Promotion... Every other buff we have is better being used during a Wildfire and we're saving that damage for a particular phase, our overall dps suffers greatly.

[Odowla]

if sustaining 1100 makes us a burst class, wtf is a ninja

[Ryaz]

if sustaining 1100 makes us a burst class, wtf is a ninja

I don't think I've seen any parses with sustained 1100 dps. We hit high numbers during our burst phase and then it drops down considerably after Wildfire is off.

[Ephier]

MCH 3:30 parses end right when the wildfire goes off which is by no means a consistent measure of our sustained DPS. The 4 minute parses that Hax was putting up before was a good estimate of sustained.

[Odowla]

I don't think I've seen any parses with sustained 1100 dps. We hit high numbers during our burst phase and then it drops down considerably after Wildfire is off.

i mean 1079 is basically 1100
its close enough that you can round with decent error.

also, you dont spike too much on wildfires - i never dropped below 1k on all of my runs, and jumped like MAYBE 20 DPS when wildfires tick

[Ryaz]

Ok, one question...

When do we use our second set of buffs?

Do we wait a minute and a half and pop them as soon as they're ready, despite not having Reload ready (ie, Hawk's Eye, Blood for Blood, Rapid Fire, Wildfire) and rely on luck or do we wait 2 minutes and get Reload and Hypercharge as well? What gives us more dps?

Reason I ask is because I was doing testing on a dummy (no food or pots) and I started out great with like 1400 dps during the opener but after 4:30 minute my damage slowly dwindled down to around 840-860, which seems really low for a ilvl 180 character (no Hive weapon yet-- just downed Bismarck today).

[Odowla]

Yeah just use them when those four line up.

No reason to wait on an ability that does 7% of your DPS when used optimally. MUCH better to line it up than to wait for a 300 potency off GCD after waiting a while minute

put it this way, if you wait for another 30 seconds, every third time you wait you miss out on a whole wildfire. not worth in longer encounters.