As a MCH player, please don't let me down SE.

[Oxmodial]

I'm sticking it out until 4.05 for now because I really do enjoy the difficulty and uniqueness of MCH, but I'm scared that they'll just go "overheat damage buff from 10% to 20%" and that's it. I really want to play this class despite the fact that right now BRD is better in every conceivable way.

Please make sure you get it right with the 4.05 balance changes SE, I don't want to have to switch to BRD or another class, but if MCH doesn't get some reasonable buffs I think I'll have to.

Furthermore if SE fails to give this class the help it needs it will really only confirm my suspicions that they have no interest in machinist being good. The only time MCH was ever good was really not intended by SE it was simply because they failed to have the foresight to see how well wildfire and % buffs scaled late into HW with higher ilvls.

[EdwinLi]

I honestly think SE developers that work on the Jobs never bother to test out the Job at all.

It seems the design choices were more made through theory crafting about what may happen instead what is actually happening.

4.0 update put a lot of issue on majority of the Jobs mostly design wise.

[Ametrine]

I certainly hope MCH get's love. And SCH. And WAR. And BLM. And SMN.

Yeah there are a ton of balancing issues right now.

[Zeonsilt]

MCH main here for far too long.

Atm, Bard is better in EVERYTHING. Damage, Party buffs/utility, easier rotation and much less punishing to play (unlike MCH triggering overheat at wrong times).

I hope they will balance classes right with 4.05. Otherwise, i will be playing PLD (or not playing at all, which is also possible).

[Kleeya]

Brd doesn't have badass gunblades, so they are not better in EVERYTHING over mch.

Keeping seeing the "mch is too punitive if you overheat without wanting it" argument kinda make me want to facepalm when i think back of all the "FF14 is becoming more and more casual, you will be able to finish everything by rolling your head on the keyboard" comments i did see on some community sites when the coming big job changes were announced a while ago. So, you want jobs hard to play or not ?

Even if SE dont do some needed changes like tweaking some skills stats or making the flame thrower usable while moving i will anyway keep playing mch despite the bad stuff, the biggest reason being that it is much more fun than the old gunmage one. Excepting a quick try of my samourai being now lvl 52, since SB i didn't even bother to lvl another job because i dont feel the need to do so.

[Zojha]

So, you want jobs hard to play or not ?

Hard and punishing are two different things.

Difficulty relates to how hard/easy it is to mess something up. Punishment relates to how badly you're affected if you do mess up. Avoiding the accidental overheat isn't overly hard, it is just very punishing if you do mess it up - a bit like old enochian, really.

[Enla]

Hard and punishing are two different things.

Difficulty relates to how hard/easy it is to mess something up. Punishment relates to how badly you're affected if you do mess up. Avoiding the accidental overheat isn't overly hard, it is just very punishing if you do mess it up - a bit like old enochian, really.

This, just one look at FFlogs also shows that in spite of the punishing difficulty that no matter how perfectly a MCH executes their optimal rotations that an equally optimal BRD will always out perform them by leaps and bounds. Likewise because the MCH rotation is so unforgiving there are very few who are even capable of reaching that pinnacle at all which even furthers the current gap between the classes. I'll admit that MCH is much more fun to play now and I enjoy it immensely. Yet that doesn't change the fact that it's optimal rotation is far too intense for what little pay-off you're able to scrounge.

[Sylve]

-Replace Overdrive with an actually useful damaging skill in the core rotation. Im partial to having it turn the turret into the minigun the final boss of Doma Castle has.

-Change the +5% Damage bonus on Hot Shot to an effect similar to Huton. Spending a lot of time just waiting for globals since we only have 1 oGCD on a short cooldown. Making Cooldown off the global with a 2~ second recast would work.
-Flamethrower needs help too, Twitching ever so slightly kills it, It can't seem to crit and i cannot see damage numbers in my regular floating text to see if its even hitting my targets. Either make it a targeted AoE whereby the skill reads "hits the target and all targets within 8y" or give us an actual channeling cast bar for it.

-Make Heat Level improve damage, attack speed or Direct/Critical hit rate depending on how high it is. Rewards Machinists who can consistently ride the overheat line.

-Make Wildfire more consistent by changing it to XX number of charges on the target, each damaging shot that triggers WF now consumes a charge to store damage. The stored damage would be listed above/below/near the Ammunition counter.
Could potentially also set WF up for a 'remote detonation' effect, Whereby you activate to put the charges on the target and when the charges are consumed, you press WF again to detonate it. Would be unique in that it is less affected by phase changes compared to other jobs cooldowns.

As a final note, I think the only reason that Overheating has a damage bonus on it is to make Gauss Barrels heat function do something useful prior to getting Cooldown and Heated Shots. (GB is 52, Heat doesn't do anything until Cooldown at 62)
Personally, I don't believe we were ever intended to overheat the Barrel regularly, Considering how the Reloads work. 5% more damage for 10 seconds does not make up for the lost potencies from Heated Shots, the straight damage loss from not having Gauss Barrel for 10 seconds and then the nightmare of getting back to 50 Heat if Stabilizer is on Cooldown.
It definitely has a place in short "burst" phases and trash AoE, where the tiny boost might make a difference, But for regular stuff? I feel like the losses outweigh the gains in boss fights.
Once we get Cooldown and Heated Shots, Losing GB and being under 50 heat is severely punishing and all our skills seem to point to staying AWAY from Overheating as much as possible.

There are tweaks they can and should make to our core skills, But boosting Overheat damage percentages is the last thing i would expect them to do.

[Kazrah]

I'm still of the mind that after three weeks, no one--neither player nor dev--knows what to do with MCH. Lot of players still didn't know how it worked even back in 3.x, let alone how it works now, and I'm not sure devs know what direction they should take it. It all kinda smells of BRD 3.x, where such a drastic change made the job feel like it was having an identity crisis.

I also think this should call into question the finer details as to how jobs are tested. All that has been mentioned on the matter is that they're tested on basic performance (most likely a target dummy) and raid performance, probably to see how well it is in terms of being able to handle the most typical raid mechanics. There has yet to be any mention in regards to comparison of job performances within a given role (i.e. BRD v. MCH, SMN v. RDM, etc.), which could provide a possible explanation for specific lacks of job balance, MCH being far and away the best example for this.

[TankHunter678]

I'm still of the mind that after three weeks, no one--neither player nor dev--knows what to do with MCH. Lot of players still didn't know how it worked even back in 3.x, let alone how it works now, and I'm not sure devs know what direction they should take it. It all kinda smells of BRD 3.x, where such a drastic change made the job feel like it was having an identity crisis.

I kinda wish MCH was built around specialist weapons (the flamethrower is an ok start) and specialist ammunition. Even if some of those specialist weapons would need to be mounted in turrets, and having more turret fired skills. It would be nice to have a turret that we can order to fire FF7 style Matra Magic missile barrages at the target mob and the ones around it.