MCH vs BRD (And why MCH need serious help)

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

The most unnecessary changes to MCH were:

1. Bishop Turret damage getting Flare treatment (it's 60 potency. There's NO reason to make that lesser with more targets. It defeats the purpose of an aoe turret)
2. Removing Lead Shot (the one and ONLY DoT MCH had, meanwhile BRDs 2 DoTs have become central primers to some of their song mechanics)
3. Turret Reset if a turret is destroyed. Sure, it takes a lot to destroy one, but forcing that cooldown on players where it wasn't before, nor ever an issue before was a bad idea.

[Elnidfse]

On DHit, if the question you're asking is "how much of a boost is +15% DHit?", then you have to base your answer on how much damage the recipient is doing before that +15%. Say their base, zero DHit dps is 3,000. With ~780 added DHit stat, they get a 20% DHit rate and now their dps is 3,150. If you want to know how much of a boost another +15% DHit is, what you care about is how much it increases the 3,150, not how much it increases a theoretical 3,000 that isn't what's actually happening. And 3,262.5 dps is a 3.57 percent increase over that 3,150.

I get it. That means that the initial DPS is never going to be 3.75 and will instead hang around 3.6% downard up to a hypothetical 3%.

On mechanics vs. getting tripped up, I'm mainly saying that I'm not going to take your (or any MCH alarmist's) word for it over the word of the Machinists I know who think such claims are nonsense. You haven't played Bard, or any other high level dps it seems, and in listing MCH concerns (both here and on the reddit) you haven't expressed anything all that compelling relative to what other dps (including Bard) need to deal with. I can't claim with certainty that one or the other has it worse, having not played MCH myself, but I've little cause to believe it's MCH.

I should mention that I'd say I'm speaking from the average. No matter what, if any, changes happen to MCH. I'll never be a top 100 MCH and I'm pretty okay with that. I'm more than willing to listen if you'd be willing to provide some narrative that supports your belief. Why do your MCH friends think that such claims are nonsense? How much potential potency could you lose in a worse case scenario? How volatile are you to mechanics? The price of single button mistakes? How much more impacted are you to a full reset. I'll happily take any constructive criticism. But a dialogue isn't going to establish itself if only one person participates in it. You're going to have to meet me halfway here.

[Greedalox]

The most unnecessary changes to MCH were:

2. Removing Hot Shot (the one and ONLY DoT MCH had, meanwhile BRDs 2 DoTs have become central primers to some of their song mechanics)

I heavily disagree with your opinion on this one. Lead shot was a skill that was always coupled with another. You'd cast it always immediately after Hot Shot so it was essentially the management of 1 ability for the GCD of 2. Also, the disassociation between BRD and MCH is paramount- bards having a heavier DOT gameplay while MCH going a different route is a good thing. The game play behind it wasn't riveting, it was that "invisible unit of damage you'd apply after hotshot." I'm glad it's gone and nothing of true value was lost in our gameplay.

Unless you are meaning the loss of it's powerful potency in which case that's an issue overall with MCH's potency at the moment instead of of the loss of a core skill.

[EdwinLi]

Unless your meaning the loss of it's powerful potency in which case that's an issue overall with MCH's potency at the moment instead of of the loss of a core skill.

Ya that basically all Lead Shot was back in 3.0/3.X being just a add on to what MCH had to keep maintained for extra DPS. There was no actual mechanic behind Lead Shot other than just being there for DoT up keep and just applying it to multiple enemies if the player feel like it.

As of now MCH seem to be going the Direct Damage route as the Range DPS Job to spearate itself from bard's DoT gameplay.

Though they certainly need to handle this a bit better now considering Bard mechanic is set up well in my opinion with almost everything bard does and use depend on their DoT Crit to function including their Songs.

MCH has Heat mechanic but it lacks a certain flavor in use, compared to Bard's DoT proc mechanics, where it is mostly there for players to maintain between 50 to 99 Heat and to only access a Overheat 123 skill, add a extra 5% damage, and a stronger Cooldown attack.

MCH was going into the right position after 3.X adjustments and had no restrictions preventing a MCH player from going full attack bombardment on a enemy but here in 4.0 MCH have to hold back if they want to maintain between 50 to 99 Heat due to all the things they have to manage now.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

The fact that overheating is a DPS buff is still confusing to me. Considering the long cool down overheating, I'd think they should either increase the buff it gives you, or make Overheat something you never want to do, without the 20 second cool down. In the case of the latter, so long as we could snap the Gauss back on once overheat ends it'd be much better.

[Cetonis]

snip

On the former, if you increase DHit by 15%, it's additive like you said. So DHit goes from 20% to 35%. With your new DHit rating, your overall damage relative to a base of 3,000 is 3,000 * (1 + 0.25*(35/100)) = 3,262.5. And 3,262.5 / 3,150 (the dps you were doing before BV) = 1.0357. The math you had there would assume that you can double direct hit - that is, you're multiplying 3,150 by the added direct hit modifier, when part of that 3,150 comes from DHit damage that can't possibly DHit a second time.


On the latter, the thing is, avoiding an overheat isn't especially hard, so if you overheat by accident you just made a mistake and need to improve. If a boss jumps during WF, you should just plan your WFs better. That's not hard either in a static scenario, it's just prep. That's pretty much my MCH buddies' line of thought.

If you're setting aside avoidable mistakes, then it becomes a matter of how much MCH loses relative to other jobs in the process of optimizing its cooldown plan, noting that in some cases (rare or no) being more reliant on timed cooldowns can be a benefit if shedding weaker sustain time. Cooldown optimization is a universal thing, most every dps has to do it, it's just about whose least-bad option is more-bad on a given fight.

Meanwhile, there exist strictly unavoidable losses for other jobs - DRG losing their eyes and windup due to a long fight break, SMNs with their DoTs, MNK if RoE doesn't apply, etc.

For BRD, it's with their DoTs and SS, where they lose 500 potency or so straight up when everything drops, that being 145p in DoT ticks, 200p in lost Heavy Shots, 50p in lost SS damage, and about 125p in lost procs. This happens on most boss jumps historically, as debuffs are typically erased though sometimes (Alex Prime last phases) they aren't.

Machinist doesn't really have an equivalent, save for needing to Hot Shot after long breaks. Other than that, they're free to do whatever is best for them, given the upcoming mechanics and fight particulars. That might not be full guns-blazing every time, but it's fully up to the player to figure that out and decide.

As for Bard's own cooldown concerns, Bard needs to figure out how to do good on its Ragings (~500p) and try to maximize WMs (Minuet is ~+500p over other songs and sometimes mechanics make us forfeit all or part of one, i.e. Susano sword). There can be Litany and/or Chain (each worth up to ~600p) as well - notably, all of the above want a long uptime (30-50 seconds) to fully play out their benefits, which can be cut into both by breaks, or by inconveniently-timed Trick Attacks / Balances begging you to re-shuffle.

Again though, like MCH cooldowns this stuff can be planned / optimized (save for Raging kind of, and Barrage for sure), and the extent to which that process will hurt different kits will depend on fight specifics.

If we want to delve into the land of mistakes, it is alarmingly easy for Bard to lose a 240-420 potency Pitch Perfect due to Minuet expiring on them (that timer lies, I swear). Or 100-240p if you tried to do a good and get out of a 4s WM, only to have that proc hit before MB resolves anyway. Or in non-mistake land, getting stunned or jailed out of the tail end of WM can lose 420p plus another 100-140p per proc, typically talking 420-660p lost in those cases, more for a jail.

There's a hodgepodge of ways - poor EA timing, bad reaction time, misjudging song timers, needing to prioritize a support skill, getting stunned etc. - to bleed ~130p procs left and right, in general. You can lose SS on a Jaws (-100 to -300p) if you don't correctly juggle a ticking RA proc, the SS buff, your DoTs and any procs/EAs - this most often happens when Barrage is coming back to send you to mental math hell. Or you might drop DoTs entirely due to trying to work out that stuff, which is -350 to -400p or so even if you keep the SS up.

If you do a dumb and drop song, or have no choice because you used WM too early because Army's Paeon rused you, or you just didn't plan for the phase timing right when drawing out an AP a minute-plus ago, you'll be out ~30-50p per second including the lost party buff, for 2-8 seconds usually. Dying can cost you this amount for up to 25-30 seconds, depending on where in the song cycle you were, because all three songs are on cooldown at most times. You also drop party buff on people if you walk too far away, which can pressure you to play it risky with some mechanics.

If your reaction time is less than godlike and you react to a RA proc on a planned HS->BarEA with HS->Bar->RA->EA, you lose ~60p on the EA delay (you want to HS->EABar->RA, which I've yet to succeed at), and if you're actually slow or distracted and follow through the the BarEA, you lost 140p of course. (RA procs way too late for what it is, honestly) If you fish for a BarRA and lose a Barrage later because of it, -530p on avg. I can't begin to count the ways you can screw up with Raging Strikes, though many of those things are tens of potency rather than hundreds.

Few if any of this stuff is big-flashing-sign in your face like a lost WF or an empty heat gauge might be, but in some sense that makes it worse because your damage can just get chunked away silently behind your back. Mediocre Bards tend to have no idea that a lot of it is happening, or when they do, that it's a bigger loss than it seems.

Does that make it more troubled by real-fight situations than Machinist? Heck if I know, arguing over who can generate the biggest / most impressive list of possible mistakes is kind of silly in the first place.

But it's very far from nothing, and I do feel a lot of the mistakes are tough to avoid given the half-second reactions and timer judgments involved in many cases. Your attention can be quite strained between all the timer / proc / EA juggling at points, and needing to also attend to an unfamiliar or tricky fight mechanic can often send you into some major oversight or another.

[SkywenXRosethron]

I don't really agree with the brd does more dps. in ff logs they pretty much tie in dps. bard is just so much more useful for everyone. they need to give machinist more utility. I really hate the overheating buff because it comes with a debuff at the end of it for 10 seconds. bishop turret is pretty stupid yea we have a lot of aoe abilities but most of them either have a high cd or are weak. maybe give turrets a aoe that buffs the party. or when you overheat you buff the partys dmg as well as your own. give us something!

[EdwinLi]

I don't really agree with the brd does more dps. in ff logs they pretty much tie in dps. bard is just so much more useful for everyone. they need to give machinist more utility. I really hate the overheating buff because it comes with a debuff at the end of it for 10 seconds. bishop turret is pretty stupid yea we have a lot of aoe abilities but most of them either have a high cd or are weak. maybe give turrets a aoe that buffs the party. or when you overheat you buff the partys dmg as well as your own. give us something!

The lack of utility is more of a design choice to separate it from Bard gameplay being a Support Focus DoT Job. Machinist is heading into the Damage Focus Range DPS Job which is why it lacks utility since it is being designed more to focus on damage so it can be the opposite of Bard.

[Elnidfse]

*snippity snippity*

I see. Thank you for taking the time to explain things from a job perspective. While I would love to be obstinate, I'd lie if I said you haven't convinced me of the absolute nature of not really knowing jack all about the issues our sister job goes through or the small nuances that lend themselves complexity that I took for granted. And yes you're right, the solution to most problems are with good prep. I should state that my perspective or argument is one from approachability. That is, if somebody were to pick up the two, which of the two would they struggle the most with out of the gate. But even still you let me know that there's a difference between that (approachability) and effectiveness. Given the example, the blinking red overheat sign and lockout that might as well be a (you screwed up indicator) versus silently losing all of your effectiveness in the background without even knowing you goofed. Naturally the rules are different at the higher end of the spectrum so there it would not then come to being punished for small mistakes or bad planning but instead be punished for unavoidable mechanics that weren't optimized around. A thing both jobs have to deal with in equal portion as you've just explained. Still it's pretty eye opening to see in no uncertain way the problems that BRDs deal with.

That said I would like to point out that heat management along with CD usage is deceptively simple. Outside of the common issues of tracking CDs, proc management, and worrying about your heat gauge, and potentially having to keep your eyes on three areas at once while still trying to pay attention to mechanics (a thing I thought I should mention because this is something a fresh to 70 MCH was being disheartened with when I talked to him) or more if you're in the business of dismantling effectively (mentioning that it's easier to do that then using troubadour effectively) the heat gauge is an ever constant threat just looming over your head. Think of a fighting game in which your risks or gameplan slows down when you get low health. The heat gauge is like that. The higher you go, the higher the stakes become. It would be fairly easy for a player to play and never overheat and in fact stay in the 50-70 range at the risk of decreased effectiveness.

The problem, as with anything else, comes from attempting to optimize. When you're dancing at the precipice of 90 heat, padding your CDs to make sure you remain at 90 heat when it's time for your next wildfire, (or at the very least 70-80) it definitely starts to hit you where it hurts knowing that not counting your bullets or just one hotshot will ruin everything and desync your entire rotation for god knows how long. Which leads to the problem of CD desyncing. A topic so vile that I'll leave it alone for another day.

And then there's double weaving. Which itself wouldn't be a problem. But Square decided to add an action button which upsets my sequences and ruins everything when I have to press the stupid thing in the middle of a wildfire. And planning my entire gameplan around having to press a button that shouldn't be eating my OGCD buffer to begin with is infuriating. And then there's that stupid barrel stabilizer with post overheating wildfires which locks me into looking at pinups of my gauss barrel when I'd rather be shoving bullets into my weapon. A period in which:

And heavens forbid that stupid stupid action button needs to be pressed for whatever reason.
1) Hotshot needs to be refreshed (GCD)
2) Gauss Barrel just cooled down and be put on (OGCD)
3) Quick reload came up (OGCD)
4) Reload came up (OGCD)
5) You need to Barrel Stabilize (OGCD) aka I'm going to eat your inputs
Naturally not in this order

The point being that while this isn't exactly a problem I hate it because something always ends up getting clipped because the stupid things cycle at the same time every single time. And then there's susan's jails + Stun wombo combo. That just dares me to try and start a Wildfire and see if he won't stun me the second I throw it on, every single time. For a 1/7 chance this happens at x-com levels. And I'm not sure why I've started to plan a fight rotation for giant petrifEye when I'll have to relearn it from scratch come next week when I'm pugging savage.

Still, at the end of the day both jobs have their individual nuances and quirks. And you've helped me come to understand why I shouldn't take what I see at face value. (But I'm still going to be advocating for more relative damage over!)

[Exterium]

1) Hotshot needs to be refreshed (GCD)
2) Gauss Barrel just cooled down and be put on (OGCD)
3) Quick reload came up (OGCD)
4) Reload came up (OGCD)
5) You need to Barrel Stabilize (OGCD) aka I'm going to eat your inputs

Don't play BRD if you think a lot of stuff gets clipped for MCH.