Machinist needs help.

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

I am by no means a MCH main nor do I even play the job seriously. I only play it because I like how Heat Blast looks and how Ricochet sounds. And I have just skimmed through this threads posts, too lazy to spend the time reading everything, so I do not know if this has been suggested so far. I also don't do EX trials or raids on MCH. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way.

There are 5 ways to fix Flamethrower, that range from pissing MCH mains off or having some semblance of entertainment.

1. Remove it entirely because channeled abilities/ spells/ weaponskills will never be able to work in FF14 ever because of how movement based the game's mechanics are and how boring channeling is. Never interesting or fun to channel something unless it does an insane amount of damage upon conclusion. And with how uninteresting and weak Flamethrower is it is eternally damned. I also feel dumb whenever I use Flamethrower on 10+ mobs because I've no idea if it's a dps gain over Spreadshot spam or even doing anything, so lately I haven't even been using it.

2. Sack Flamethrower and replace it with an AoE version of Rook/Queen. We could call the turret, oh I dunno Bishop? This would fix Flamethrower's lackluster feeling but would still be adding a button that is useless for single target (when this game is nearly entirely single target) And would also anger MCH mains because getting Bishop back at level 70 instead of the same level as Rook is laughable.

3. Remove the channel on Flamethrower and have it reuse Bioblaster's machine thing, instead of coming from your gun (so the fire animation doesn't look wonky), and be a generic 60 second, or any number that doesn't interfere with MCH's flow, oGCD that deals flat damage or is a burn DoT.**

4. Remove the channel on Flamethrower and have it reuse Bioblaster's machine thing and be a generic 90 or 110 second oGCD, or any number where it doesn't sync with Reassemble, that expends Bioblaster's DoT to blow up and deal damage with a potency greater than Bioblaster and Drill Shot combined. That would at least give Flamethrower AND Bioblaster, every so often, a use in single target encounters and make Flamethrower have a tinge of interest and usefulness. Would it make MCH's AoE damage increase significantly? Dunno and I don't care. **But could it potentially anger MCH players who would now need to get into melee range every so often to use this version of Flamethrower? I dunno. But it sure would make the job slightly more interesting, at least in my opinion.

5. Same as above but keep Flamethrower a gcd and have Flamethrower be a combo off of Bioblaster but make Flamethrower's cooldown triple that of Bioblaster/Drill Shot. Still would allow Bioblaster to be used on a single target once every 2 Drill shots.**