To FFXIV Team From a Concerned Machinist

[whiskeybravo]

Double weaving is fine. Rapid Fire weaving is not fine. Screw Rapid Fire. That ability can be deleted for all I care. Rapid Fire is the main reason Overheat window is so tight with latency. Flamethrower is almost as bad but not quite for the same reasons.

Hmm. I mean I guess things could be adjusted such that MCH could perform equivalent damage without Rapid Fire. I read the other suggestion about making it a Barrage like ability but that seems like a rather cheap fix. What if.. It was actually like the old Barrage that increased auto-attack rate for it's duration? Seems like that would make a bit more sense thematically and wouldn't need to worry about it being a direct copy. Or affecting anything else within the OH window. At 15 sec you could pop it with Flamethrower and it could last throughout OH duration. On second thought that might be bad since FT cancels auto-attacks.. But something like that would solve the main problems with RF weaving I think.

I forgot about that document of suggestions the other Fox made

Rapid Fire: As said above, its actually decent but needs some tuning for ping issues. My suggestion - Rapid fire is now called Double Fire: The next GCD is fired twice. This will allow for some sweet Reassemble plays.

One possible issue with this is that the auto-crit abilities typically only affect first hits. If that's not changed then you're not really using it any differently than now.

[Grimoire-M]

One possible issue with this is that the auto-crit abilities typically only affect first hits. If that's not changed then you're not really using it any differently than now.

The auto-crit effect can be changed to be 100% Crit Rate until the next weaponskill is used. It'll snapshot onto both hits that way. If used on a DoT it would also snapshot onto all ticks that way as well. The current wording specifically excludes secondary effects. Removing that clause means it would include them.

That said I think it would be better if Overheat and Wildfire were changed to be stack-based effects, that only factor in weaponskills. The ideal number at the moment for both is 6, so go with that as a starting point and adjust the multipliers accordingly. If the damage proves to be too low then adjusting the potency of the final hit, the stack count, or allowing Gauss Round/Ricochet to be oGCD weaponskills like BRD's Empyreal Arrow could help out. This would also solve some of the issues with Flamethrower cutting into the timing window, letting you use it for AoE as you pleased as well.

[Kitfox]

That said I think it would be better if Overheat and Wildfire were changed to be stack-based effects, that only factor in weaponskills.

While this by itself would be a bit of a lackluster change, I think it would be a good direction for the change. Currently MCH rotation requires aligning every single ability for Overheat and Wildfire. That means there's actually just one job mechanic and the entire toolkit is bound and locked into it. The result is that any delay or mistake affects the whole rotation.

This is in stark contrast to something like BRD or SMN that have rotational segments that work independently of one another. BRD has its song rotation as a base, each song has it's own internal mechanic, and you have a burst phase that you align with your best song and Barrage. Messing up the timing of one ogcd here or there barely has an effect on the rotation as a whole. SMN similarly has its DoT refresh cycle, Aetherflow cycle, DWT phases and Bahamut burst phase. All of them are linked to each other through Aetherflow, but have great amount of flexibility in their timing. Even RDM has their spell rotation and melee combos, but their physical ogcds are not tied to any particular part of their rotation.

It would be a healthy change to decouple some of the mechanics from Wildfire to make the rotation less error prone.

[Grimoire-M]

-snip-

To be honest I hate the non-segmented micro-phases of Stormblood's Summoner. They're nowhere near as interesting or meaningful as Bard's and are completely forced to the active detriment of the job as a whole. It functioned a lot better in Heavensward where it was all in one window but you could pick when to do it and what you were doing during it to some extent. The only problems it had in HW was clipping Festers was mandatory (imo Ruin IV would've solved this issue), Aethertrail was on a timer (but you wouldn't get triple Aetherflow in anyways due to the longer cooldown), and too many buttons of setup, much like MCH currently has during its Wildfire window. But it was easier than current MCH because you could afford to wait, and Contagion was easy to mash on during DWT itself till it fired. I'd be less bothered by the phases if they actually changed up the rotation meaningfully like BRD does. As it stands DWT is a mobility cooldown, Rouse + Enkindle no longer lines up so you don't really notice either in action, and Bahamut does what DWT + Raging Strikes did in HW but worse due to Wyrmwave basically forcing clipping your GCD to time it out properly. They're certainly functional, but their numbers are why they're good. They're not well designed and are overtuned at the moment to hide the fact they needed more little more thought put into them.

I'd much rather have DWT/Rouse/Bahamut all combined into a single button and balance SMN around a 20s burst window where all you worry about is Aetherflow usage during it. I'd want some other way of making their filler outside of DWT more interesting and giving them something to spend Aetherflow on during downtime/invul phases to ensure they can still pick when to go off without losing efficiency in dodge heavy segments. Ideally purely through a resource generation mechanic tied to Ruin I/II to access a stronger Ruin III/IV outside of DWT instead of relying on a proc. That would differentiate it from MCH and BRD significantly. Maybe add more ways to use Aetherflow abilities but not generate more Aetherflow/trail stacks too, but that's not the primary concern imo.

MCH's problem is their burst window is too short and too strong in potency (Same with Trick Attack, if we're being honest) and their heat generation is a non-factor at best and an active detriment at worst thanks to a combination of skill speed and Flamethrower. Sure, their filler would be fine with minor adjustments but Three button filler is still more interesting than one button filler. Wildfire/Overheat/Flamethrower/Gauss Barrel/Barrel Stabilizer are all atrocious individually and in aggregate at the moment and obviously need to be looked at. They absolutely got the worst treatment out of any class in this expansion, and it's clear it was rushed. Even more than Summoner & White Mage were.

BRD's problem is their crit procs scale with crit rate raid buffs and make them either too good or too weak in personal dps depending on your group. Piercing isn't the only issue for them. Like SMN they're they're in an overwhelmingly good spot at the moment, and better designed now than they ever have been before. However, they are poorly balanced. Their raid utility is too good at the moment too. Whether it's unique to them or their role. They're completely wound into why the meta is what it is. If you removed them this game would look way different. Different enough that the only meta class is NIN.

I'd like their procs normalized. Whether that's moving them from crit to direct hit or making them static percentages tuned to each song. That way they're always capable of the same amount of damage no matter what composition they're participating in next expansion. Their song phases are unique and interesting but I kinda wish SE would tone down their utility a bit by reworking both Paeon and Foe Requiem. Paeon is boring, obviously. The reason I propose Foes gets a rework is mainly so BRD has some choice in which song to use depending on the needs of the situation at cap, gets more to do while levelling, and loses some of their dps utility and dumb mana interactions. Battle Voice and permanent 2% crit rate for the whole party is more than enough. I don't mind if they have to pick 3 out of 4 songs every Raging Strikes rotation. Having Minuet as the dedicated Single target song and either Foes/Paeon as dedicated AoE with Ballad and the other one holding up your filler with even AoE/Single target contribution through different approaches. Ballad via the Bloodletter resets. The other via empowering your weaponskills in potency and attack speed. That would be fine imo.

Also while Barrage doesn't affect AoE and I'm glad it doesn't at the moment, I don't think I'd mind if it did so via a trait upgrade next expansion. Mainly via secondary effects. Maybe a spread multi-dot on one of the bites. Refresh with Iron Jaws, guaranteed Triple hit + proc with Empyreal Arrow. Refulgent Arrow gets spread if multiple targets but retains the triple-hit on single. Triple Quick Nock would be great and busted. It would retain a hard limit of up to three total attacks with whatever you used it with though, and might open the cooldown up to being changed around. It's not something I'd want to see over everything else mentioned above, but if it all did, then maybe this would be neat.