Current state of MCH?

[Ephier]

MCH is and always has been a solid job.

Quit kidding yourself. 3.0 MCH was beyond underpowered.

[ShinSenpai]

Quit kidding yourself. 3.0 MCH was beyond underpowered.

One word: Rapidfire

Instant mounting, instant teleporting. Good times.

[Tsilyi]

rip rapid fire glitch we hardly knew ye ;-;

[RiceisNice]

Release of 3.0 had BRD and MCH being incredibly undertuned; WM and GB were actually a dps loss even at 60 so there was really no reason to stay in beyond the 2 skills, and it also made the leveling process incredibly atrocious if it was not your first job via MSQ.

BRD also had questionable additions that made their job (imo, along with a good handful others) just not fun to play due to it not working properly and such.

After some tuning, both BRD and MCH functional and can work for their raid spots, are comparable to each other in damage, performance, utility and even gameplay (which isn' a good thing imo). MCH has more re-active procs to play to and a burst period that turns the game into Beethoven simulator. BRD is less procs to watch out for, and cooldown utilization is stacking everything onto barrage with empyreal arrow. Once you get past the novelty of it being a new/different job, you'd probably feel that the all it is to it when it comes to MCH's general gameplay compared to BRD.

Both completely fail at aesthetics though. The cast animation for WM and GB are godawful, they both have functionally the same abilities for the sake of homogenizing each other (which they should avoid considering they're different jobs...), and no matter how good your gun looks, it's going to be ruined by the mismatching lunch box (which is the same no matter what your gun is) and the guass barrel.

One common thing people says that "MCh is more work for the same reward" when you look at how they handle wildfire and the amount of awareness they'd need for procs compared to BRD. But honestly, once you take that away, you're just playing a reskinned BRD at that point since they lack any other differentiation aside from wildfire and their "filler shots"

MCH is and always has been a solid job. People saw the numbers as weak before Alex came around due to

While it wasn't low enough that prevented content from clearing, both MCH and BRD were objectively behind every other job in dps by a subsatnial amount. And even then, 3.0 had WM and GB being so undertuned with 20% and the fact it was a 3-second cast time to activate it caused it to become a retro-active dps loss if you held onto it beyond using empyreal and sidewinder/gauss and ricochet and made it unfeasible for stance-dancing. You were acutally better off taking off gauss barrel after the pull and quick-swapping it with the rapid fire glitch; a full time GB versus no GB at all led to a difference of 3-5% dps (going on both directions no less because you'd have to hit every single cast time and oGCD) where as every other job would see at least a 20% increase by using their 3.0 abilties.

[NorthernLadMSP]

Machinist was a very fun job, until I got Gauss Barrell. Haven't leveled it any further.

[Kaznym]

I love the playstyle and most of the aesthetics. I'd appreciate a toggle for Gauss Barrel and a decent explosion on Wildfire. Grenado Shot's a bit too subtle as well.

The turrets being stationary is completely irrelevant most of the time with how short the cooldown is... unless you want to bishop turret moving targets, but flaming arrow and such have similar problems.

The rotation's a bit overwhelming at first but not too bad with practice. Make sure you know when the boss is going invulnerable though, failed wildfires really suck.

[RaizeGraymalkin]

I stopped leveling it at 53. Switched to leveling my DRG to 60 and haven't looked back. It's so damn boring. It lacks any visual excitement, the guns all look terrible (except for Gjallahorn), and the animations lack flair. It's just standing there and going "pew, pew". I think the biggest issue is, in fact, the weapon. Using a boring ass musket isn't exciting. Should've been dual pistols/machineguns (don't even come at me with lore bullshit). THIS is a gun job done right:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFDuX-46QmA

Also mechanics wise there's a huge problem, with the way their combo procs. On DRG the MOMENT I hit Chaos/Full Thrust, either Fang and Claw or Wheeling Thrust proc IMMEDIATELY. On MCH it has a habit of proccing at the very last second, which can mess things up. Not sure if it's lag or what, but that needs to be fixed.

[Jonnycbad]

I'd really like to look like i'm aiming my shots instead of casting them

Think of it as channeling your bullet with thunder-aspected aether using your GB.

[Bluffnix]

I took Mch to 60 pre 3.1, it was okay. Post 3.1 it's still meh.
Once rapid shot goes down I feel like I can button mash and look away while GB slowly activates my boosted shots at rng chance of proc.

Honestly if I need to dps I'll bust out my ninja. Playing caster is fun, as SMN or BLM.. not so fun as Mch or Brd.

[RiceisNice]

I'd really like to look like i'm aiming my shots instead of casting them

Think of it as channeling your bullet with thunder-aspected aether using your GB.

Twirling your gun and holding it upward isn't aiming it, bub.