Current state of MCH?

[Underdog2204]

I don't think many games have a design philosophy that all designated supports would make a great team. On that factor, I'm not against the incompatability of MCH/BRD on the same team and I don't feel that them being weak together is a design flaw or a backed into a corner move, it would be a different story if they just made us straight up DPS and got rid of the support tag.

Support is a very loose term for this game, it's just a resource battery. DPS battery is more appropriate ^^

Now if we were talking about actual support that involves buffing, debuffing, CCing etc (would be awesome) then I would agree with you but we arn't they just have a couple of buttons to press now and again. 99% of the time they are dps doing dps rotations.

It is just poor design imo.

[Greedalox]

Support is a very loose term for this game, it's just a resource battery. DPS battery is more appropriate ^^

Now if we were talking about actual support that involves buffing, debuffing, CCing etc (would be awesome) then I would agree with you but we arn't they just have a couple of buttons they press now and again.

It is just poor design imo.

I dunno, I feel that with the spread of 2/2/4 for raid content that it's not terrible to split the 4 into a variant, namely support. Battery or not, they they are the only ones who possess the capability and are brought for it. I don't see the problem with 2 tanks, 2 healers, 3 dps and a "battery" over 2 tanks, 2 healers and 4 dps.

[Underdog2204]

I dunno, I feel that with the spread of 2/2/4 for raid content that it's not terrible to split the 4 into a variant, namely support. Battery or not, they they are the only ones who possess the capability and are brought for it. I don't see the problem with 2 tanks, 2 healers, 3 dps and a "battery" over 2 tanks, 2 healers and 4 dps.

Good point.

The issue comes when it seems that any new physical ranged jobs are now going to have to be shoehorned into this battery role, and none of them are going to work with each other.

Can you think of one reason MCH needed to have regen on the turret? Or why BRD needed their regen songs? I sure can't. Healers have tools for mp management, why was a class needed to give them mp instead of their own skills? I just cannot get my head around the choices they made.

[Greedalox]

Good point.

The issue comes when it seems that any new physical ranged jobs are now going to have to be shoehorned into this battery role, and none of them are going to work with each other.

Can you think of one reason MCH needed to have regen on the turret? I sure can't.

I would assume that MCH were given turret regens for the sake of a more or less "guaranteed" role having more than 1 job to fill it. Funnily enough the classes are still incredibly similar, but I see where they were coming from when making a second battery.

[Underdog2204]

I would assume that MCH were given turret regens for the sake of a more or less "guaranteed" role having more than 1 job to fill it. Funnily enough the classes are still incredibly similar, but I see where they were coming from when making a second battery.

Well i sure don't they just gave a new coat of paint to an old job imo.

Yeah sure the way they do damage may be different but the role they are supposed to fill does exactly the same thing. It just goes to show how none support these jobs are in the fact the only real difference between them is really the way they deal damage.

I can roll with it, but i can understand why people are frustrated and annoyed.

Oh and SE better had give MCH a proper animation on Wildfire -_-

[Archaell]

I think it is safe to assume that BRD and MCH aren't going to stay the only batteries for long. Imagine that they would add melee support, dancer could do that etc., and it would suffer the same penalty MCH with BRD do. Even now when you get several BRDs and MCHs in DF groups it can cause problems with dps checks, with melee support it could get even worse, as low dps classes require better skill to do required amount of damage.

Oh and SE better had give MCH a proper animation on Wildfire -_-

And if it could get a little bit more casual friendly, like exploding several times or been triggered before immunity phases that would be great too. Option to blow it up manualy wouldn't be bad either.

[RiceisNice]

Can you think of one reason MCH needed to have regen on the turret? Or why BRD needed their regen songs? I sure can't. Healers have tools for mp management, why was a class needed to give them mp instead of their own skills? I just cannot get my head around the choices they made.

If MCH was going to compete with BRD for a spot, they'd need to be able to fill in the same niche and become interchangable. They already shot themselves in the leg back in 2.0 when they made BRD the only job capable of giving other players tp/mp regen, whihc may or may not be necessary for the content at hand. The other was not make any jobs have it, and that BRD/MCH is interchangable with both casters in regards of a ranged dps.

For the record, I'm fine with them being the "support dps" niche or whatever they want to call it. They need to homogenize their utility and purpose if they're gonna compete with roles (hence both of them having regen). I'm not fine with them homogenizing their gameplay though, which is mostly the case in regards to BRd/MCH's general gameplay outside of cooldowns.

[Myon88]

Is their gameplay similar though? I mean obviously they both have WM/GB cast times, but that's like saying SMN and BLM are similar because they both have cast times.

MCH keeps up 1 buff and 1 DoT, then has a 1-2-3 RNG combo with ammo interaction.
BRD keeps up 1 buff and 2 DoTs, spams heavy shot and relies on procs from DoTs for ogcds.

Maintaining uptime on some buff is par for the course for jobs in this game, that's just their all round homogeneous approach to all classes.

The way I see it the main difference is how they deal with movement - MCH's base rotation (split-slug-clean) is RNG, but they can use ammo and bank ogcds to have guaranteed instant casts when needed, BRD can just spam heavy shot but must rely on RNG for their instants to proc (Straighter Shot/Bloodletter reset).

[RiceisNice]

Is their gameplay similar though?

They're both dps jobs that play reactive to procs, maintain a buff, maintain a debuff, and really not much else differentiation beyond that. When you compare BLM and SMN, they have umbral/astral and aetherflow/aethertrail respectively; both persisting mechanics unique to the job and their base rotation. The most you can get out of BRD/MCH is ammunition, which is practically another oGCD that gets used up without a thought and as soon as it comes up because it's free damage and tp, especially since only two skills that MCH use actually get any additional effect from ammo that isn't the base 20 potency. There's very little turret interaction that it becomes an afterthought until you need to use regen or hypercharge (which is a cooldown and isn't necessarily part of their main gameplay, or is "part of it" as much as ninja poison and FoF is to monk). Of course it also doesn't help that GB/WM are functionally the exact, same abilties, alongside other carbon copies like quick notch/spread shot and Wide volley/Grenado (both of which could've been opted out for an AoE attachment or something)

Even if you were to go by their movement, that shouldn't be their only differentiation. I won't argue that MCH is more motile than BRD, but I don't move that much to begin with unless mechanics call for it anyway, so it becomes less of a defining trait.

I also don't understand why people refer to "banking ogcds" to have abilities to use when they can't stand still...because those oGCDs are going to be used when it comes off cooldown anyway and aren't on the GCD timer.

Having played both jobs, leveling both casters and a DRG, as well as and being anxious about MCH being a new job, the best way I can sum it up is that I'm disappointed that this is the final version of MCH that we got (especially in relation to BRD and how they got slapped with wm) compared to what they had initially previewed with ammunition usage and various attachments.

[Magicmike]

All this talk has me second guessing my first job of bard. Im only lvl 35 and thinking of going something else. I am enjoying this game so much as a nub. But why waste all this time if i get to end game and its the worse job in the universe ( about the equivelant in rl of being a greenhorne under captain keith )
Will it be worth it ???