Overheating should be capitalized, not ignored to make MCH fun

[ChocoChick]

It’s clear a lot of people are disappointed in the recent MCH changes. It seems to lower their difficulty too much which makes it less enjoyable and it seems SE is purely encouraging us to never over heat as our main method of dealing damage.

However I feel like there should be benefits to overheating to make the class more interesting.

In particular, I believe overheating should be encouraged during wildfires. Wildfires for MCH should mean pumping out as much damage as possible. So overheating, on top of hypercharging your turret, using rapidfire, unloading as much as you can, detonating your turret then BOOM. That wildfire should hit hard. That would make for a satisfying and challenging gameplay experience.

Perhaps a 20% overheat damage buff is required, but much more careful analysis on potency and damage needs to be done. You want to make sure it’s worthwhile to overheat during wildfire, but not worthwhile to overheat without wildfire. Otherwise players would constantly want to overheat, which makes managing heat between 50-100 irrelevant (and not as fun).

Currently, it’s really quite boring because it feels like it’s harder to stuff up on the class. If we had to overheat during the right times it will make MCH much more interesting to play again. There’s something wrong if players actually enjoyed the previous MCH and with the intention to buff MCH, you somehow made players dislike it after the changes.

I believe you need to take the opportunity to make the overheat mechanic more interesting and not just about keeping it between 50-100 at all times.

[Magic_Fork]

What kind of firearm weilding class dose the lowest damage in a game wile having the suport that a rubber duck has to you shampoo bottle at home. I can only hope that the dev team take a closer look at where they actually want this class to go in the future and what role they want it to play.

The Heat Gauge.
I personaly never overheat as the 10% damage boost it gives just dosnt feel like enough to compensate for the ten second cooldown time and loss of damage that comes bacause of it. I will admit that. The new heat gain times do give you more time to keep an eye on other things rather then stairing at the guage all the time.

It's not all bad though
I dont know exact numbers but MCH AOE damage seems do be dooing ok if used in the right way. I agree that MCH has gotten easyer since HW, but I dont think it's a bad thing as it gives new players to the class more room for error and later more time to test new rotations.

[Zojha]

I'd rather not capitalize Overheat as long as it comes with the lock-out afterward.

It's not fun, it won't ever be fun as long as it comes with a guaranteed detriment to gameplay afterwards and no amount of number changes is gonna make it fun. It's the same reason Monks complain about their Riddle of Fire and you bet NINs would be complaining to hell and back if Trick Attack would remove Huton, regardless of whether the numbers were fine or not.

And honestly? I'd go for a simple fix: Allow the usage of Barrel Stabilizer while Overheated to immediately end Overheat and put you back at 50 heat. Not only will that most likely immediately bump up the numbers of good Machinist to the point no further buffs are needed, it also fixes the issue of the drag period afterwards and suits the theme of a "Stabilizer". It also fixes the issue of the 10% boost not being worth it. And it still has some room for mastery as you try to use BS at the last second. All that's missing afterward is to revert the changes to the heat gains.

[SlayerOmega]

I dont agree with your analogy. But I DO like your change for BS. Using it at the end of overheat to go back to 50 and skip the lockout would be mint. And still has room for error so risk/reward.

[Alchemii]

I'll be adding these ideas to the list I'm making tonight. ^_^

[Kabooa]

Revert the heat reduction. I get it was supposed to make the class 'easier', but it also robs of the opportunity to use Cooldown liberally, which is equivalent to our second strongest GCD shot. In that lull between Ammo'd shots, having a guaranteed 230 shot is nice.

Flamethrower not adding a stacking DoT of some kind is a straight up crime (Mach aoe go)

I'll still maintain that Cooldown should reduce the 'cooling down' period after an overheat, to let Mach get back into the action faster.

[Ferrasper]

I think my main problem with overheating is that you loose GB after it is done and therefore the 5% damage boost. If you kept GB on and the 5% after you overheated, you just can't build up heat. I would be fine with overheating then. As it currently stands, overheating with the downtime isn't worth it.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

I'm actually the opposite. I think Overheating should be more punishing due to the fact that it would actually warp the metal if it's that hot. Give the "Heated " range a passive damage buff, and make it so shots generate 10-15 heat per bullet while heated. Voila, MCH is fixed. Right now I just use BS to get back to 50 heat if my last WF cooldown drops me below that threshold.

[Magic_Fork]

This chat seems to be moveing in the same direction as most of the others I have seen.
Please remember that you arnt going to ba able to taylor the heat gauge to your own spercific playstyle. I personaly would rather it was removed with the swich between the heated and regular moves to be set as a stance. Half the people I have seen want it to increase more, the other want it to decrease. I have said this in other discutions but I feel that people who play MCH, see the class and how it should be played too diferantly for SE to make any stable and productive changes.
There is also the note that people are starting to avoid MCH due to the reputation it is getting. IF there are little to no players playing the class, will SE keep it in?
We have to see the overall picture of the changes and the future effects.The class has already been altered a fair amout for its age.

[Elnidfse]

What kind of firearm weilding class dose the lowest damage in a game wile having the suport that a rubber duck has to you shampoo bottle at home. I can only hope that the dev team take a closer look at where they actually want this class to go in the future and what role they want it to play.

The Heat Gauge.
I personaly never overheat as the 10% damage boost it gives just dosnt feel like enough to compensate for the ten second cooldown time and loss of damage that comes bacause of it. I will admit that. The new heat gain times do give you more time to keep an eye on other things rather then stairing at the guage all the time.

It's not all bad though
I don't know exact numbers but MCH AOE damage seems do be dooing ok.

If by "ok" you mean... less than optimal I'll agree
To explain:
Our optimal aoe rotation if you're not going to be burning hypercharge WAS spread until 100 heat. Spread until 1 second left. Snapshot flamethrower and ride that wave
Our optimal rotation if you're not going to be burning hypercharge STILL is spread until 100 heat. But getting there takes twice as long since the changes. When running dungeons with my FC it's not uncommon for my sister DPS and healer to pull well over what I can do. And the only compensation to this, our overdrive -> bishop overload is on the same 120 second cooldown as our hypercharge. The only icing on this cake is that overload is actually good given that it does not suffer from falloff that our bishop turret inexplicably does. And if you can just wait 2 minutes between pulls and 30 seconds after you finish a set with overload you'll have great(!) aoe. That's sarcasm
The real fact of the matter is that without any ability to multi-dot and a bishop turret that does not perform the function of the dot that we lost, our AoE in situations where there's a burn phase with targets in distant positions or AoE in any raid where you don't want to OH because of obvious reasons is actually kind of mediocre.

This is to say nothing of our AoE pre 70. Or heaven forbid you go do a roulette.

I don't think it's a bad thing as it gives new players to the class more room for error and later more time to test new rotations.

Aside from the low damage output, the neutered heat gauge certainly makes it more accessible for the handful of MCH that couldn't manage heat before, sure. And yes the downsides of mismanaging heat was terrible. But this was because the PAYOFF was terrible. Regardless, they certainly aren't going to have an easier go at clearing anything with a modicum of difficulty given that you have to play well above the skill levels of your allies relatively in order to compete.

see the class and how it should be played too differently for SE to make any stable and productive changes.

If they make changes based on feedback the reduction of MCH post patch should help keep it back to where it was before in regards to playstyle. The MCH was designed around it's heat gauge. Removing the need to manage it gives it it's very own identity crisis where the changes are counterintuitive with the philosophy of the job stated by yoshi-p himself in an interview. It's easy for anybody with eyes to see the problem when your job gauge which you are balanced around becomes an afterthought.

The bigger problem is that if you don't want to overheat in most content, you don't have to and probably won't suffer much of a dps loss. If it impacts your performance you can opt to ignore it in all content and suffer a negligible dps loss. With the stupefying changes of the job using this context, this renders barrel stabilizer, flamethrower, and to a lesser extent, cooldown completely inert. 3 of our abilities that we gained from 60-70. See the issue here?