Summoner Early Post-Launch Feedback at level 80

[Taranok]

Machinist is one of the 3 selfish DPS in the game. They are always going to trounce on any class that has any level of support, by design.

And Machinist takes a fair amount of effort, but they do a couple things SMN does not that makes the class, despite being busier than SMN, feel a lot easier overall:

• You have 2 abilities, both on multiples of 20 seconds, that act as your clock. Drill, and Air Anchor, with emphasis on Drill.
• Every other mandatory timed ability operates on this clock. From Reassemble to Wildfire and Barrel Stabilizer. (As a note, why isn't barrel stabilizer just combined with wildfire if they both are functionally going to be used at the same time?)
• Every ability that is not listed on the 20s clock, has a massive amount of wiggle room on when you implement it. You have 10 full GCDs, or 25 seconds, to get Hypercharge out, and your twin oGCDs Gauss Barrel and Ricochet stack up to 90 seconds worth of casts, so you really can use them whenever as long as you don't clip it during Hypercharge itself.
• If anything gets desynced from Drill, you can forcibly resync it. Even minor amounts of skill speed will allow for Drill and Air Anchor to gravitate towards each other, and everything else you can just delay. Because of how it's delayed, as long as you didn't die, typically it will stay synced with other DPS classes in the game anyways.
• Since everything is instant cast, your oGCDs can be played basically whenever you want without penalty, provided you use the correct corresponding GCD for that moment.
• And the only timers that regularly might get screwed up is Barrel Stabilizer and Wildfire. BS because you might overcap it, and WF because you're trying to keep it synced to BS. Which I'm honestly not even certain is a serious problem since I am not a great machinist yet.

The class flows really well because of all of this. You basically do this: About to enter Hypercharge? Check Drill. Just left Hypercharge? Check drill. Drill about to come off cooldown? Check Air Anchor and Reassemble. About to cast air anchor? Check battery (it will almost never be a clip, you either forgot to cast it or are about to cast it perfectlyt, it times stupidly well with Air Anchor).

And you just casually pay attention to Wildfire/Barrel Stabilizer because they're also tied to reassemble a bit, but you're scanning so much of the bar regularly that you just will pretty much always notice them even without specifically checking for them.

It's busy, but it flows. It has a tiny bit of clunkiness to its flow with regards to Barrel Stabilizer and how Drill/Hypercharge line up, but because you have so much wiggle room on Hypercharge except when BS is involved, that you can delay it to keep Drill rolling, and then Hypercharge and not care.

Machinist really exemplifies how a busy class should be designed, even when it's a bit rough, compared to SMN. Because you have ONE clock that everything else gets slaved to naturally, and everything else can fall in line or be nudged back in line if it ever falls out of line.

Meanwhile, over in summoner land, the class has TWO clocks (Trances and Energy Drain/Siphon), the timings are weird even outside of those clocks, things tend to just not line up well or feel unnatural, and it has to watch so much more because of its bizarre timings and sheer volume of buttons. It has a completely unnatural and inorganic rotation because of how Ruination works with FBT and having very few actual instant cast GCDs to safely cast at times of movement or when using oGCDs, and it ends up having a choppy, uneven flow. And those clocks will nautrally get desynced, but when desynced you can't forcibly resync it because so much damage is tied up in both of them.

To put it another way, Machinist beats Summoner at its own game. Having good-great damage on top of it is just icing.