Adjustments to MCH design without reworking from scratch

[CKNovel]

1. Heat and battery needs some love, those gauges are fill, spend and forget. Imo, there is way too much heat generated and not enough way to safely spend it. Battery gauge works well and can remain the same, it's reliable and flexible.

2. I've been circulating this idea for a long time, but MCH should rotate through the different tools that would change the 1-2-3 combo.
Flamethrower for example:
1-Becomes a single target blast.
2-Becomes a single target shot with a massive DoT.
3-Becomes a frontal cone that increases MCH damage to the target(s).

Chainsaw for another example:
1-Becomes a single target melee slash.
2-Become a 5s cd jump to the target.
3-Become a circle aoe that inflicts a little bleeding debuff.

To reduce the 1 2 3 monotony, Gauss Round and Ricochet could get upgrades as well, but designed in a way it doesn't encourage the MCH to keep its GR/Ricochet charges, that would be counter intuitive.

3. No. We don't need reload back, especially if it doesn't have depth to it. MCH should keep going the path of heavy machineries, not going back to the gun path.

4. Reassemble, in my opinion, should allow a free use of any Machineries just like Tsubame Gaeshi. A stronger single target Drill or stronger Bio Blaster or Stronger Auto Cross Bow... Or more battery for single target Air Anchor? And yes, an animation rework would be welcomed.

5. I think you're asking for a bit too much rework when all the job needs is to grants 6 stack of Hypercharge that could be used to cast Heatblast. Basically the same way Perfect Balance now works, grants stacks to be used. In my opinion I would tone it down to 3 charges because Heat Blast can be annoying.

6. See above.

7. The needs for more AoE. See above (Flamethrower&Chainsaw)

8. Barrel Stabilizer, or BS, needs some works unless Wildfire is gone/changed. BS purpose is to generate enough heat for the Wildfire combo, except when playing normally, unless you suffer massive downtime, you already have enough heat for Wildfire combo due to Drill/Air Anchor cooldowns. I think the rotation wasn't properly tested.
It can be either gone, either rework to a 2/3 charges cooldown that gives 20 heat for more flexibility. Generating 50 heat in one go is move restrictive than anything else.

9. Air Anchor works nicely. Hot Shot doesn't needs any visual/sound changes you won't see it 99% of the time unless you are progging SB Ultimate/leveling an alt.

10. No. Turret was a good boy but doesn't need to come back, it was for the time when MCH was a gadgeteer. What you are asking for is a dot on cooldown with aoe variant. If a Summon can add as much depth as a dot, then there is no need to make a summon. Especially in XIV where summons are not always reliable. For the sake of lore and job flavor, AQ is an upgrade and an Automaton that fits a Machinist, Turret fits a gadgeteer.

Enough with the variations, we have enough. How much did you use Bio-Blaster instead of Drill during this expansion apart for dungeon&normal content? E1S, E6S, TEA. Three fight out of how many, 18 of them?
AoE variants are mostly used in 24 man raid/Dungeon content and from 1 up to 6 times in hard content, where you spend the most time.
Variant can stop or we'll simply see too much variants to be rarely used and 1/4 of the hotbar barely used.

11. There's no issue but I'd see a small bonus damage for remaining battery duration OR the Automaton Queen actions are based on charges and not a timer. The only goal for Overdrive is to correct a mistake when a boss is about to fly away and your queen is there with way too much time remaining.

12. Wildfire needs to get out. There's nothing good with this cooldown, it's a remnant of the past and pure garbage.
It has the lowest DPS of ALL MCH actions.
It has the least depth of ALL 120s CD, it's basically a 120s damage cooldown but with a delay.
It's just an enhanced hypercharge, nothing more nothing less.

Just make it a rocket launcher is you absolutely wants to keep it. (That's a joke, don't do it)

13&14. No issues with both, no need to scrap Ricochet it's a good cooldown and MCH would be boring with only gauss round. It's an aoe that has uses in every content.

[Kabooa]

Enough with the variations, we have enough. How much did you use Bio-Blaster instead of Drill during this expansion apart for dungeon&normal content? E1S, E6S, TEA. Three fight out of how many, 18 of them?
AoE variants are mostly used in 24 man raid/Dungeon content and from 1 up to 6 times in hard content, where you spend the most time.
Variant can stop or we'll simply see too much variants to be rarely used and 1/4 of the hotbar barely used.

11. There's no issue but I'd see a small bonus damage for remaining battery duration OR the Automaton Queen actions are based on charges and not a timer. The only goal for Overdrive is to correct a mistake when a boss is about to fly away and your queen is there with way too much time remaining.

12. Wildfire needs to get out. There's nothing good with this cooldown, it's a remnant of the past and pure garbage.
It has the lowest DPS of ALL MCH actions.
It has the least depth of ALL 120s CD, it's basically a 120s damage cooldown but with a delay.
It's just an enhanced hypercharge, nothing more nothing less.

I don't think variations by themselves are bad, but the binary one-or-the-other is where it gets stale / old, as every job utilizes this. Using Machinist specifically, if each pair of gadgets shared their cooldown, but using one set the other at half the recast, you'd use both, but you'd still prioritize one. This is just a basic example of a system where you'd still prefer one over the other in either single/aoe, but you'd still use both.

Charges on the queen would be pretty neat. Going along with this suggestion, making the Queen burn her fuel via attacks and not duration, and changing Overdrive into a "focus this target" directive would go a fair way. No more Queen shooting off to the other light party's enemy.

Let the queen contribute to Wildfire. This would be an extensive boost to Wildfire's damage (Given how fast she swings, double its potential potency) and give Mach a tiny bit more to play around.