Shots Fired: A Machinist Guide

[Velhart]

Is this guide still the comprehensive and best possible MCH guide?

I've seen a few other things (Reddit) that go against this.

The guide on the front page is heavily outdated.

[Sigmakan]

Any tips for add phase on a3s? MCH toolset doesn't seem to shine during that phase.

[CarnivalNights]

The guide on the front page is heavily outdated.

So what page do I have to go to find the most up to date opener/rotation?

[zandervont]

Any tips for add phase on a3s? MCH toolset doesn't seem to shine during that phase.

Well you got stun/silence (both do work on the flans using Mucilage), 40% heavy for times when your smn/sch is slow, pretty mobile job to begin with and turrets dont take dmg from the middle pool, not to mention no combo losses from movement/Ferros.
We are just getting past that and working on last phase and so far I've no problems on the phase.

Mostly I just keep Hotshot on and use Reload+Reass.+Ricochet (savin other stuff for last phase) and focus on the furthest ones from the melees/tanks. I'm also mpbotting for until the last 2 packs when I take Rook out and well.. that's pretty much it for tips I can give.

[Sigmakan]

I assume you're keeping GB up the whole time?

[zandervont]

I assume you're keeping GB up the whole time?

i was, but now i've been testing if its better to stancedance as there's not much proper cds used.

[Sigmakan]

Apologies for all the questions. Any idea if grenado shot will hit all the adds if you target the water spout? Kinda doubt it since grenado shot's AoE range seems pretty small.

[Aiurily]

Any tips for add phase on a3s? MCH toolset doesn't seem to shine during that phase.

so the waves go

2 big
3 small
1 big 2 small
4 small
3 small
4 big

with current gear and experience, most raids will typically kill all the adds that spawn in the first waves before the next wave spawn; only starting to fall behind wave spawns after the 1 big 2 small wave. at the same time, if you use your 1m cds at that point (rico, reassemble, reload) , they will be back up once the living liquid is back. so right around when the 1st ferrofluid resolves is a good time to pop your CDs and catch up on DPS.

ideally you want to do your full wildfire burst once the boss once he's back in last phase. this means most of your CDs have to be saved; the add phase lasts roughly 2 minutes, and you shouldn't have any CDs going into it (because of the prior hand of pain dps check). anyway, i usually actually play mana song til the end of the 1 big 2 small wave, then i put rook out; and then i play a bit of TP song on the 4 big wave (since at that point DPS is all caught up, and topping MP/TP off in add phase>giving MP/TP in last phase)


the best you can do is figure out where you can stun mobs and putting your heavy to use. ideally the tanks should handle the 2 big and the 1 big stun; you should only have to save stun for the 4 big wave as a fallback even (2 melee+2 tanks should get it). so everywhere else, you can/should stun mobs that aren't being hit by melee or ranged. then if your stun is on CD and you see another mob that has a low chance of being hit immediately after spawning, leg graze it. if you know a mob will live at least 9 seconds, put lead shot on it.

also, grenado shot will hit some of the mobs if you target the living liquid; but not all of them. uneven spacing

[Brimcon]

Alright folks, new week, new Esos. After getting weapon, Chest and Legs. What do we get next from almost full i190? I'm having trouble deciding whether to get gloves or something else this week. Any thoughts?

So what page do I have to go to find the most up to date opener/rotation?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...eC_L3JAwY/edit

This is the latest update to the opener, though of course, stat weights are out of date.

[Aiurily]

so, to elaborate a bit more on stance dancing

for most cases, 1 auto+1 gcd is stronger than 1 gcd in gb, right. this is the concept of stance dancing.

now, if you actually pay attention to your autos, they aren't queue up to fire off immediately as soon as you go out of GB; rather, they actually continue on a timer still from the moment you start attacking something. why is this relevant?

because if you do a quick toggle, for example, like

clean shot>drop gauss>hot shot>auto>gauss on>lead shot

this would be a dps increase normally. but what can happen is that your auto is delayed, and comes up really late into your GCD; making you either clip your GCD to wait for it to come out, or not wait for it at all in favor of your GCD (logical choice) and you lose the GB modifier on a skill, without getting the auto to make up for it. in the reverse, you can be very lucky and drop GB right before an auto comes out, and get 2 autos during 1 weapon skill for a big damage boost.

so overall, on top of also micromanaging in between oGCDs and toggling for movement, you also need to have an idea of when your autos actually go off. and on this subject once again; if you look at the current 3 endgame weapons, their speeds are 2.64 (hive weapon/gordian weapon) and 2.48 (ferdinand). so, with the hive/gordian, your GCD will actually begin outpacing your autos because of the delay on it; with an average auto timing after toggling GB off, you will have a high chance of losing an auto at 4~ GCDs without gauss, at the benefit of increased damage per shot (ie more effective stance toggling). with the ferdinand, your autos will keep up with a reasonable GCD for quite some time, but damage per shot is a bit lower.