To FFXIV Team From a Concerned Machinist

[Darkpaw]

Well I'm going to keep posting here so that it doesn't fade from the top of the forums hoping to create a discussion that garners some attention.. so why do you all think we haven't gotten buffs since 4.05

[Lastelli]

Well I'm going to keep posting here so that it doesn't fade from the top of the forums hoping to create a discussion that garners some attention.. so why do you all think we haven't gotten buffs since 4.05

Because the devs probably don't want to see double ranged meta again. mch sacrifice was necessary to let sam, mnk, smn and blm shine, apparently. Of course they couldn't sacrifice brd because it's too loved as a job, the backlash would've been insane.

Until they finally decide to remove disembowel in 5.0 and balance drg, brd and mch properly.

[Darkpaw]

Interesting but also points out an issue of why punish a singular class when the other option was to have it compete as it should with bard. Give them similar but different enough buffs and make it so key buffs do not stack on the other and that could solve that problem and cause some friction on the dual ranged meta again. The piercing thing no one can or I think would argue. That is something that needs to change. Full reliance on a dragoon for damage is horrifying.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Interesting but also points out an issue of why punish a singular class when the other option was to have it compete as it should with bard. Give them similar but different enough buffs and make it so key buffs do not stack on the other and that could solve that problem and cause some friction on the dual ranged meta again. The piercing thing no one can or I think would argue. That is something that needs to change. Full reliance on a dragoon for damage is horrifying.

To be fair, adding key buffs or making Machinist the Samurai-esque equivalent to range DPS would be nearly a full overhaul. Like with Dark Knight, the devs have outright said they won't be doing anything significant until 5.0. At best, Machinist will see slight potency buffs similar to what other jobs got in 4.4. That's about it for now.

[lulunami]

It was big red flag to me at the beginning of 4.0 expansion that a job that is harder and janky to play has much less personal dps, raid dps, and support abilities. They truly want Machinist to be in the gutter.

[whiskeybravo]

I don't think the suggestions being offered are any more complicated than the mid-expac rework of Inner Release or Shake It Off. Especially just fixing raid weapon stats and increasing hypercharge back to 6%. That's gotta take like.. 30 mins tops. Like they kicked around buffing Shadow Wall for months and months only to cave and finally reduce it's cooldown like the community suggested. It didn't break the game.

The only thing I'd consider absolutely mandatory is fixing Overheat so it doesn't start counting down until GCD activation. Anything that improves the job's gameplay/consistency would be welcome of course, but this would fix like 90% of OH/Wildfire problems. Dual-weaving is a secondary concern, I think, mainly because most jobs have to dual-weave at some point, especially so during openers/burst windows, and I'm not sure MCH deserves some sort of special exemption in this regard. If you don't have a great connection you're not going to be able to play any job that relies on dual-weaving at a particularly high level. And this is really more of an underlying contradiction with the architecture and battle design of the game itself more than it is any specific job, so it needs to be addressed at that level if anything. Also, I think if OH is fixed the dual-weaving issue wouldn't be so prevalent and obvious.

[Kitfox]

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.

[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.

[Darkpaw]

All great points and great suggestions. Truthfully yes Machinist needs a full rework and we know that won't happen this expansion, as I stated before my personal choice would be to take wildfire and overheat and put them on a gcd counter ala embolden from red mage.. I think most arguments would fade away of machinist being a busted class no one wants to play.. and I don't think that's too much to ask.. it's no more difficult than several other quality of life changes that several others classes have gotten throughout this expansion, but time will tell I suppose. But I love all the ideas so please keep them coming.