SkillSpeed on the Machinist Raid Weapon is a big joke.

[whiskeybravo]

Monk had a similar issue last tier and again this tier with the tomestone weapon being superior to the raid weapon.

Diamond weapon had Determination (garbage stat for monk) and skill speed. Tomestone weapon had crit and direct hit. This tier the raid weapon has direct hit and determination while the tomestone weapon has crit and skill speed.

Honestly I don't mind that the raid weapon is worse than the tomestone one since it frees up the coffer I get from running with my static to be used for another job's weapon. But I do understand why you'd be frustrated to have gone through all the work to clear savage only to have lesser potential rewards for your main job.

It's a MCH problem specifically. Like, if you have a bit of extra skill speed on pretty much any other job it doesn't completely wreck it's rotation. You have the weapon damage advantage as well so, all in all, skill/spellspeed 405 weapons are still probably stronger. But again it's the fact that skill speed specifically wrecks MCH core gameplay mechanics. It's not about damage at all, just how the job itself actually plays at high skill speed.

It's just a disconnect, as Speckled mentions, it's probably RNG that determines the stats. I'd like to think SE could find a spare 15 minutes every 6 months to review the stats a bit more rigorously and make sure the strongest weapons you get don't contradict the job's design. But alas..

[Kabooa]

I think 'wreck' is a harsh term. it certainly doesn't feel great, and large amounts of speed are negated by clipping, but Mach's double weaving really only occurs at one point, and it's usually at the start of the Overheat/Wildfire window.

But we aren't talking large amounts of speed. Rapid Fire locks the GCD at 1.5 so skillspeed doesn't muss this up, and having your next GCD delayed by the .1-.2 clip has effectively no bearing on the Wildfire/OVerheat window. Some of the benefit of Skillspeed is lost through Double weave clipping and Flamethrower, but not all of it, and again, -you still want some-.

The OH/Wildfire window is 10 seconds each, and you want 6 GCDs in each. Over 7 GCDs, 6 will be in overheat, 5 of them in wildfire, and the last one in the last bit of wildfire as a normal shot.

So in Overheat, you have to A) Start the GCD rolling ASAP. 10 second window, first GCD at 0. Next at 2.5, and then 5.0. Rapid Fire puts 3 in 4.5 seconds, meaning your 6 GCDs have a .5 window at 0 skillspeed. The same goes for Wildfire, as the two overlap.

Saying Skillspeed on the weapon is an insult is a bit overdramatic. Even the best of ping is reducing that .5 window at base speed to something like a .1-.2 margin for error.

Maybe 0 ping, 99thers don't worry about it, but I plan on picking up some skillspeed with the higher item budget this tier. I've cilpped that last cooldown far too many times.

[whiskeybravo]

I think 'wreck' is a harsh term. it certainly doesn't feel great, and large amounts of speed are negated by clipping, but Mach's double weaving really only occurs at one point, and it's usually at the start of the Overheat/Wildfire window.

But we aren't talking large amounts of speed. Rapid Fire locks the GCD at 1.5 so skillspeed doesn't muss this up, and having your next GCD delayed by the .1-.2 clip has effectively no bearing on the Wildfire/OVerheat window. Some of the benefit of Skillspeed is lost through Double weave clipping and Flamethrower, but not all of it, and again, -you still want some-.

The OH/Wildfire window is 10 seconds each, and you want 6 GCDs in each. Over 7 GCDs, 6 will be in overheat, 5 of them in wildfire, and the last one in the last bit of wildfire as a normal shot.

So in Overheat, you have to A) Start the GCD rolling ASAP. 10 second window, first GCD at 0. Next at 2.5, and then 5.0. Rapid Fire puts 3 in 4.5 seconds, meaning your 6 GCDs have a .5 window at 0 skillspeed. The same goes for Wildfire, as the two overlap.

Saying Skillspeed on the weapon is an insult is a bit overdramatic. Even the best of ping is reducing that .5 window at base speed to something like a .1-.2 margin for error.

Maybe 0 ping, 99thers don't worry about it, but I plan on picking up some skillspeed with the higher item budget this tier. I've cilpped that last cooldown far too many times.

All I can say is it does start to wreck your rotation. I didn't clear 08S on MCH specifically but I've done pretty much everything else with it (looks like you have too) and beyond 900 it gets really damn wonky. The main problem aside from window drifting is your GCD's get out of line with Reloads as well, you're building up heat faster but still waiting on the same 60-sec window. Can be dealt with by using Cooldown, but then you risk wasting GCD(s) on flamethrower for the extra ticks. The extra skill speed entirely goes to waste.

At the end of the day I don't main MCH, so tome weapon will be alright for it eventually. But doesn't take away the fact it's not necessarily something MCH mains are going to look forward to. You have to otherwise be some sort of BiS just to get to that minimal 900 skill speed w/ raid weapon.

I think the main point, as Fox mentioned, is that it's already an underplayed class. There's been complaint threads about MCH the entire expansion (though a weapon alone probably wouldn't change that). Maybe Bard is just the Warrior of DPS jobs, I don't know. It just seems to demonstrate a lack of foresight from SE. Could have been worse, I guess, could've been 356 skill speed instead of 249 lol.

[wereotter]

It's a MCH problem specifically. Like, if you have a bit of extra skill speed on pretty much any other job it doesn't completely wreck it's rotation. You have the weapon damage advantage as well so, all in all, skill/spellspeed 405 weapons are still probably stronger. But again it's the fact that skill speed specifically wrecks MCH core gameplay mechanics. It's not about damage at all, just how the job itself actually plays at high skill speed.

It's just a disconnect, as Speckled mentions, it's probably RNG that determines the stats. I'd like to think SE could find a spare 15 minutes every 6 months to review the stats a bit more rigorously and make sure the strongest weapons you get don't contradict the job's design. But alas..

I get this, my point in bringing up monk is that monks best secondary stats are critical hit first, skill speed second. So this tier to have a critical hit and skill speed weapon be the tomestone weapon is pretty much the same kind of disappointment when it comes to the raid weapon. Losing all of those secondary stats drastically impacts gameplay for a monk, likely in a similar, though maybe not as directly visible way, as getting too much of a stat on another job.

Either way, I still sympathize with the OP regarding the raid weapon being one that is bad for the job as my job is seeing the exact same thing this tier.

[whiskeybravo]

I get this, my point in bringing up monk is that monks best secondary stats are critical hit first, skill speed second. So this tier to have a critical hit and skill speed weapon be the tomestone weapon is pretty much the same kind of disappointment when it comes to the raid weapon. Losing all of those secondary stats drastically impacts gameplay for a monk, likely in a similar, though maybe not as directly visible way, as getting too much of a stat on another job.

Either way, I still sympathize with the OP regarding the raid weapon being one that is bad for the job as my job is seeing the exact same thing this tier.

Yea, and I didn't mean to minimize the issue with other jobs.. It just feels like MCH is particularly sensitive given it's strict rotation. Like with tanks I can understand, OK maybe we were getting too much crit and they didn't want us to be able to keep stacking it. Sorta understandable I suppose. But DPS jobs are DPS jobs, the raid weapons *should* have the best DPS stats for that job regardless. You can swap out tome/raid gear pieces to adjust secondaries as needed, you can't swap out 405 weapons.

[Kabooa]

All I can say is it does start to wreck your rotation. I didn't clear 08S on MCH specifically but I've done pretty much everything else with it (looks like you have too) and beyond 900 it gets really damn wonky. The main problem aside from window drifting is your GCD's get out of line with Reloads as well, you're building up heat faster but still waiting on the same 60-sec window. Can be dealt with by using Cooldown, but then you risk wasting GCD(s) on flamethrower for the extra ticks. The extra skill speed entirely goes to waste.

http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/17CCS

I think it'll end up fine.

Crit's already going to be absurd this tier. It's easy enough to end up with no skillspeed elsewhere.

I'm fairly certain weapons get their stats last, because wouldn't ya know it, the Machinist weapon's skillspeed is just enough to put someone in that comfortable zone once they avoid it almost everywhere else they can.

[Matthew_Fox]

Oof. Seems like no one knows what exactly the issue with SKS is.

I wish I had one of my twitch clips explaining the issues with MCH that have been around since 4.X and why Skillspeed is the worst stat for any job in this game. Probably even worse than Piety on for Paladin.

The Machinist rotation's goal is to use Wildfire at exactly 60 seconds to line up with Trick Attack and other Party buffs. Take for example O6S (Sigma V2S) where you have 100% uptime. Depending on your SKS/Rotation you delay wildfire every time by 1-2 seconds, drifting further and further until you miss trick attack completely. Last tier we had a BiS GCD speed of 2.48 - a rotation called 65H ended up with a small amount of waiting after the last GCD to line up wildfire perfectly every rotation. Let's call those "Perfect rotation time". Now if you add one GCD to your rotation and end up at 70H you need a GCD speed of around 2.40 - 2.41 for this to be the "perfect rotation time". Yet, being at 2.40-2.41 GCD speed comes with other problems.

One of those is obviously Clipping. You will clip most OGCDs with that amount of skillspeed, not to mention Double Weaving. Your Reload outside of Wildfire needs to be either delayed or you clip your GCD. You'll also clip with Turret resummon after blowing him up and using QR there. Other noticeable clipping was for example dismantling First forsaken in o8s.

SKS's value besides buffing Auto attacks is close to 0. It can help with getting that last GCD into overheat window but I manage to do that on 2.50 GCD speed too.
To sum up : SKS will make you clip, not kill your rotation but just make you lose DPS overall instead of gaining DPS. We don't gain damage from DOTs neither, since we don't have any.

To give examples on how far we go with this is:

1) This tier Crafted Ring Pentamelded is better than the Savage Ring.
2) Last tier Pentamleded Belt was better than both 370 Belts.
3) Deltascape the 24 Man Headpiece was better than both 340 pieces.

This is all due to Skillspeed having no value at all for Machinist.

So yes, putting SKS onto the Raid weapon is bad, it's really bad. Calculations I made show that the difference inbetween the Raid weapon and Tome weapon are around 0.6% (with rotations kept in mind) with tome weapon being nearly as strong as the raid weapon this tier around. This has not happened since Creator. It is always supposed to be Raid wep>Tome weapon. There's basically no reward in clearing O12S for Machinist players this time around. Everyone is already talking about the Eureka Weapon probably being the best before Echo is even around.

The above linked Ariyala link is also wrong. I found out yesterday that the Crafted Ring is better.

I'm not very big on Math, I use provided Calculators by Lynn Nuvestrahl in the balance discord but go a lot myself by feelycraft. I've been playing MCH since 4.X and have cleared everything but Ucob (cleared on SMN) on Machinist. Currently in o11s progression.
I am probably part of the people that play Machinist the most worldwide and I have very good understanding of how the class plays and what's optimal on it.

Giving us SKS on the Raid Weapon was another bullet to the knee considering Bard is already the much stronger counterpart.

[whiskeybravo]

The above linked Ariyala link is also wrong. I found out yesterday that the Crafted Ring is better.

390 ring definitely makes it more palatable at 750ish speed, didn't consider that.. But crafted ring.. Hmm.. Doesn't seem like it could be that much better. Giving up 6 Dex 65 Direct 7 Crit for +139 Det... Well I guess even at a low stat weight the Det would still slightly outweigh it.. Interesting. Even compared to raid ring you're getting +247 substats for sacrificing 15 Dex.. Damn.

I myself won't be able to do that for a while since I have to take care of tank first.. But will probably do that later when I'm able to start running on MCH again.

[Matthew_Fox]

It is better. We have simulations running in the Balance Discord.

[Kabooa]

I only play it because it's in the role my static needs, so while I'll defer to your expertise, I won't agree with the doom and gloom. I've had enough of that with the tank accessories discussion.