Machinist needs help.

[Rymi64]

After seeing the benchmark trailer I’m not exactly thrilled, hurray a shallow Heat blast upgrade the very skill that makes me numb to MCH, hurry even more AOE as if MCH needs more freaking fragmented aoes, clean shot appearing gave me hope somwhat but I remain pessimistic on the devs faith to make this job fun again

Heat blast upgrade? WHERE?

Also what would make this job fun to you. I always see you complain yet you never actually say what u enjoyed in the first place

[NovaLevossida]

Literal balance changes aside, they need to retool the Flamethrower tooltip (because it's not obvious how much damage it really does vs. "normal ticks") and make the wildfire damage pop-up large and easily visible. The wildfire damage just gets buried. It's on a long cooldown, you go fast slamming buttons, and... it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it damage pop-up. That alone makes it very unsatisfying (not even talking damage either) compared to reassembled drill where you get the big numbers that are easy to see.

[AnotherPerson]

What drew me into the MCH job was actually the heat blast into Gauss Round / Ricochet. It's a very nice combo action to use, and was really fun up to lv 60-70. Around lv 80, it's still fun, but it doesn't give off as much of an oomph when using it with wildfire compared to Drill and Air Anchor. The Heat blast combo is tough on latency too, but I think that's pretty much the gimimick of the skill - consecutive firing of skills nonstop for 7 seconds in "Hypercharge" mode. It makes sense you'd suffer a lot more under latency, but that's also a problem for all jobs with double weaving per 2.5 sec GCD, especially ninjas in their trick attack window since their GCD is much lower due to Huton and they have to double weave for 15 seconds straight, so that's a non-issue for me.

I feel a couple of changes that could make MCH feel better would probably be:

Wildfire does an exploding hit on the target marked for wildfire, and a 50% AoE splash damage on all targets in the vicinity. Make it really feel "explosive" since the damage doesn't compare as much to Drill or Air Anchor at a lower cooldown.

Air Anchor - also does its flat 700 potency damage, but also 50% to all enemies nearby, so it doesn't feel like you can't use a 700 potency attack and build battery gauge when you have a lot enemies to AoE.

Flamethrower - changing this ability to be more of a ground cone AoE kind of ability, set up a gun that shoots flames in an area for 10 seconds. Tagging a mob with Flamethrower gives a debuff to the enemy "On Fire" for 10 seconds.

Detonating wildfire on an enemy who has the debuff "On Fire" will double wildfire's damage.

Using Bioblaster on an enemy who has the debuff "On Fire" will immediately remove the Bioblaster DoT debuff and the "On Fire" debuff, but will do 1.5 times full damage over time of Bioblaster (maybe lv 80+ trait).

This way, Machinist's Lv 70 Capstone skill becomes cohesive with the kit rather than stand and wait until you finish burning everything down. I say 10 seconds for the debuff is a good amount of time since you would be able to setup a Flamethrower and immediately go into Wildfire, and for trash mobs, the debuff technically lasts for 20 seconds since Flamethrower will continually be refreshing the debuff on enemies as long as it's channeling (like AST's Collective Unconscious refreshing the Wheel of Fortune buff during channel). Ideally, you would want to use Bioblaster as it comes off cooldown during mobs to fit in a second Bioblaster in Flamethrower's duration.

The shotgun I believe will probably be upgrading Auto-Crossbow, so there wouldn't be major gameplay changes, but I could be wrong.

[ReiganCross]

I feel a couple of changes that could make MCH feel better would probably be:

Wildfire does an exploding hit on the target marked for wildfire, and a 50% AoE splash damage on all targets in the vicinity. Make it really feel "explosive" since the damage doesn't compare as much to Drill or Air Anchor at a lower cooldown.

Air Anchor - also does its flat 700 potency damage, but also 50% to all enemies nearby, so it doesn't feel like you can't use a 700 potency attack and build battery gauge when you have a lot enemies to AoE.

Flamethrower - changing this ability to be more of a ground cone AoE kind of ability, set up a gun that shoots flames in an area for 10 seconds. Tagging a mob with Flamethrower gives a debuff to the enemy "On Fire" for 10 seconds.

Detonating wildfire on an enemy who has the debuff "On Fire" will double wildfire's damage.

Using Bioblaster on an enemy who has the debuff "On Fire" will immediately remove the Bioblaster DoT debuff and the "On Fire" debuff, but will do 1.5 times full damage over time of Bioblaster (maybe lv 80+ trait).

This way, Machinist's Lv 70 Capstone skill becomes cohesive with the kit rather than stand and wait until you finish burning everything down. I say 10 seconds for the debuff is a good amount of time since you would be able to setup a Flamethrower and immediately go into Wildfire, and for trash mobs, the debuff technically lasts for 20 seconds since Flamethrower will continually be refreshing the debuff on enemies as long as it's channeling (like AST's Collective Unconscious refreshing the Wheel of Fortune buff during channel). Ideally, you would want to use Bioblaster as it comes off cooldown during mobs to fit in a second Bioblaster in Flamethrower's duration.

Y'know, I especially love those because it turns the MCH into a sort of DoT Interacting class, where the whole deal becomes about applying a DoT that increases a skill that then applies a different DoT that detonates another skill. Maybe, like, making Bio Blaster's DoT a sort of a flammable slime, so enemies that are under Bioblast gets hit really hard by Fire. Then have fire make people more vulnerable to your drill because they are softer due to heat dilation. And you can go further, like maybe Air Anchor is electric and deals a sort of mangetic DoT, that increases Ricochet and Gauss round damage for a while, so that is the window you'll want to throw your OGCDs...

So essentially take SMN's thing of having DoT to increase Fester and make it into a big part of MCH play, since he was a debuffer before, so might as well turn all of that into interesting ways of dealing lots of damage. And I would really like if MCH would just become "Cowboy Gunner that does lots of damage" instead of being shoe-horned into some form of team player, I was just suggesting it become a team player if they aren't going to give him big boy damage anyways.

[Tithian]

I feel a couple of changes that could make MCH feel better would probably be:

Wildfire does an exploding hit on the target marked for wildfire, and a 50% AoE splash damage on all targets in the vicinity. Make it really feel "explosive" since the damage doesn't compare as much to Drill or Air Anchor at a lower cooldown.

Air Anchor - also does its flat 700 potency damage, but also 50% to all enemies nearby, so it doesn't feel like you can't use a 700 potency attack and build battery gauge when you have a lot enemies to AoE.

Flamethrower - changing this ability to be more of a ground cone AoE kind of ability, set up a gun that shoots flames in an area for 10 seconds. Tagging a mob with Flamethrower gives a debuff to the enemy "On Fire" for 10 seconds.

Detonating wildfire on an enemy who has the debuff "On Fire" will double wildfire's damage.

Using Bioblaster on an enemy who has the debuff "On Fire" will immediately remove the Bioblaster DoT debuff and the "On Fire" debuff, but will do 1.5 times full damage over time of Bioblaster (maybe lv 80+ trait).

This way, Machinist's Lv 70 Capstone skill becomes cohesive with the kit rather than stand and wait until you finish burning everything down. I say 10 seconds for the debuff is a good amount of time since you would be able to setup a Flamethrower and immediately go into Wildfire, and for trash mobs, the debuff technically lasts for 20 seconds since Flamethrower will continually be refreshing the debuff on enemies as long as it's channeling (like AST's Collective Unconscious refreshing the Wheel of Fortune buff during channel). Ideally, you would want to use Bioblaster as it comes off cooldown during mobs to fit in a second Bioblaster in Flamethrower's duration.

The shotgun I believe will probably be upgrading Auto-Crossbow, so there wouldn't be major gameplay changes, but I could be wrong.

The change to Wildfire, while thematically great, would still not change things when it come down to boss fights. Since it requires a lot of setup to get a good explosion, I would very much like it to be a guaranteed crit, and if this is too OP for the current potency adjust the numbers a bit.

Flamethrower and Bioblaster currently feel a bit off. I feel like Flamethrower should not be a channeled ability but do a big chunk of damage up front and then apply a Burn, you are spraying enemies with Napalm after all. Bioblaster could be a targeted ground AoE that would apply a minor damage over time effect and debuff enemies in it, giving MCH a support ability in the process. The "On Fire" idea could mean that Wildfire is rebalanced around always being proced for double damage and in scenarios where this is not possible it could end up being a DPS loss for the job.

[Dracian]

As someone who never really played MCH (or ranged physical at all) until Shadowbringers, I'm not as burnt out on the job as a lot of others seem to be. But after 7+ years of caster play, I can see where folks are coming from.

For me, the changes I would like to see are simply better interactions for abilities. I don't really want to see new abilities, as I feel the number of actions is just about perfect as is.

For example, I would like to see the ability to use Air Anchor and/or our combos to extend the Queen duration instead of just building for the next one. In the end, I don't think it will change uptime for the queen, but it would give us more depth in how long we can maintain Queen uptime around certain phases of an encounter. I wouldn't mind the ability to refund some battery if you recall the Queen early (say to avoid immune phases or transitions).

I would love to see some interaction between Bioblaster and Flame Thrower. Maybe Flamethrower doing increased damage on targets that already have Bioblaster. I would also like to see Flamethrower build heat. The idea would be that Bioblaster+flamethrower is our main AoE, with Auto Crossbow and Split shot being filler in between.

Reassemble should do more than just give 100% crit chance. Reassemble+Drill should allow Drill to hit all enemies in a straight line, giving it an AOE component. Same with Reassemble+Air Anchor should create a circular AoE as well. Single-target it won't make much difference but may have some usage in boss fights with add phases where Bioblaster isn't necessary, or if there are maybe 2-3 targets to cleave.

My final idea would be to have Auto-Crossbow act more like Hypercharge and reduce the CD on Ricochet/Gauss Round.

[Kurando]

Think MCH is alright at the moment, you know what you are getting with it, doesn't really get much simpler. I would however like to see an aoe version of Air Anchor, so you can generate battery when fighting mobs and also some kind of aoe Turret/Queen. I know I know, we used to have an aoe Turret back in the day but still would be nice, a lil rocket pod or something doing the aoe, just not the old static pulse effect.

[CKNovel]

Think MCH is alright at the moment, you know what you are getting with it, doesn't really get much simpler. I would however like to see an aoe version of Air Anchor, so you can generate battery when fighting mobs and also some kind of aoe Turret/Queen. I know I know, we used to have an aoe Turret back in the day but still would be nice, a lil rocket pod or something doing the aoe, just not the old static pulse effect.

Problem with "AoE version" is that you can simply add AoE damage to the skill itself and nothing changes. In fact it shaves buttons.
It goes for everything, SAM had an AoE attack and it wasn't a problem, no one asked for a single target version.

MCH is alright and that's the problem. It's only "Alright" and risk to remains "Alright". When you come from HW or SB MCH, the job just lacks buttons.
You have 12 buttons to press as MCH for single target rotation.
As for SAM, 14 buttons not taking in account the dashout/dashin and third eye. DRG has 17 buttons.
GNB, a tank has 13 buttons and that's not taking in account the mitigation. Ranged don't have many mitigation anyway.

11 buttons as PLD for you DPS rotation, 9 for War, 12 buttons as DRK.

I have no idea for DNC and BRD, but it's ridiculous that the rotation is at the level of a tank and you don't have mitigation or melee range, just fast speed.
On top of that, many abilities are automated. Wildfire is automated, Queen is automated, Flamethrower is use and don't move for 10s, aka automated.
And again on top of all that, MCH has ONE utility button.
Let's be real there, MCH is a subjob.

[Aiscence]

Problem with "AoE version" is that you can simply add AoE damage to the skill itself and nothing changes. In fact it shaves buttons.
It goes for everything, SAM had an AoE attack and it wasn't a problem, no one asked for a single target version.

MCH is alright and that's the problem. It's only "Alright" and risk to remains "Alright". When you come from HW or SB MCH, the job just lacks buttons.
You have 12 buttons to press as MCH for single target rotation.
As for SAM, 14 buttons not taking in account the dashout/dashin and third eye. DRG has 17 buttons.
GNB, a tank has 13 buttons and that's not taking in account the mitigation. Ranged don't have many mitigation anyway.

11 buttons as PLD for you DPS rotation, 9 for War, 12 buttons as DRK.

I have no idea for DNC and BRD, but it's ridiculous that the rotation is at the level of a tank and you don't have mitigation or melee range, just fast speed.
On top of that, many abilities are automated. Wildfire is automated, Queen is automated, Flamethrower is use and don't move for 10s, aka automated.
And again on top of all that, MCH has ONE utility button.
Let's be real there, MCH is a subjob.

Can't like this post enough. I would do anything to get some depth again, and not the one 220 potency (yes it's 1.50gcd with ogcd weaving but...) button mashing numbing machine that it is right now. Even with the +20 potency, that's 10 potency under bard's burst shot, and he can spam its own 150 pot gcd between too :^).

Half troll aside, there is no more decision making, most buttons were outed, we have so many aoe skills but they are clunky/pointless, our """"big""""" cd's are fire and forget and don't aoe, etc.

But who am I kidding, we all know casuals really like it now, so they will just please them in EW and at best, we'll only get upgrades again like from 70 to 80.

[ReiganCross]

I have no idea for DNC and BRD, but it's ridiculous that the rotation is at the level of a tank and you don't have mitigation or melee range, just fast speed.
On top of that, many abilities are automated. Wildfire is automated, Queen is automated, Flamethrower is use and don't move for 10s, aka automated.

Yeah, I feel like actually giving us something to do aside from spamming buttons on a tight buff window would be for the best. The most iconic part of the job, having a big mech with a drill on its shoulder, can't just be a single button you get to press when you have enough gauge, where most of it's depth is getting around the pet jank of it taking 5 years to summon and hoping to position him far away that he gets to do the close-in attack a lot. Hell, you don't even need to pay attention to the finisher, it just does it by itself.

I heard YoshiP call MCH a pet class once when referring to what they would do to SMN. Hell, if THIS is what counts as a Pet class, then DRK is just as much as a Pet class then we MCH are. At least AST needs to tell its giant bomb to explode before things move away from it (Although he can just let it blow up by itself if the targets are just going to sit there anyways.)

I would really appreciate to always have a Queen out and using battery gauge to give her, and myself, some buffing windows or something. Maybe just let me use battery for the finisher and have her just be there. Right now she's just a flashy DoT!