Machinist needs some reworking

[MerlinCross]

Plenty of threads for MCH please stick to one thanksw

Fair but what I want to address is listed here and trying to move to another topic is messy.

There are a couple of reasons to why. One of the biggest complaints people had then was that they felt that the job didn't look anything like a Final Fantasy MCH in terms of how the job is represented in other games. People claimed it was more gunner than MCH. Funny as there is a vocal crowd who wants to go back to that. Second was that of every job in the game at the time, it had the highest skill floor, and lowest skill ceiling. That coupled with how heat worked then, you were either playing the job exactly right, or were playing it wrong and it showed in how big your wildfire was, which at the time was big enough to sometimes yank enmity off the tank. Sure it felt good when everything came together, but it didn't often do that for a lot of players due to how much had to be crammed into that Wildfire window. All of it entirely dependent on ping as well. Strange how that problem still persists, but everything around it has been both nerfed to the ground, and simplified. Speaking of simplified, It ran up against Bard at the time. Many people consider Stormblood Bard to be the best that job has ever been. It was strong, it had useful utility, it was much easier to pick up and play right while still having room to play the job well. On a side note there was so much hate for Gauss Barrel then visually. Maybe if it was a sometimes thing you had on in a fight, but you always had it on, and it made most guns look stupid.

I will agree that it is very strange how Flamethrower, an attack that has been pretty universally hated since it was added has remain untouched. Especially since it lost the only use it had in Stormblood.

And this is what I want to address cause there's a LOT here for me to dig into. I'll dig into the "Doesn't look like an FF MCH" argument cause that's probably the one that makes me the most angry.

As for highest skill floor, and lowest skill ceiling; I'll not argue against that, I agree. We just differ on where. I believe Wildfire was largely the problem of the job as I remember not having issues with Heat when I just forgot about that ability but having to make sure every Overheat lined up nicely with a Wildfire state was so annoying and gimmicky. In fact, most discussions I recall would usually bring it up as an issue. We couldn't get buffs either because as you mentioned, when it all came together through the nonsense and ping, we could do stupid damage in a burst that could rip hate. Any actual buffs or changes would amplify the issue with Wildfire. Some will point to Wildfire as the clear example of why were were High Floor, low Ceiling. I believe it was the lynchpin that prevented that from changing.

But hey the problem has been solved now.... no wait we still have the problem of cramming stuff into Wildfire. It's just that now we barely have to worry about anything as we can just largely Unga Bunga slam our oGCDs into it.

Bard didn't have this problem and thus was free to skate away(They also at the time basically decided MCH would be the 'full damage' Ranged at this time so any utility was ripped away from us). Also balance between jobs is hard to debate, more so when looking at history. Bard being overcorrected in Stormblood made sense given they got killed in Heavensward, though that was maybe a 50/50 chance of happening considering their entire track record.

I.... can't fault you for Gauss Barrel, considering one of the reasons I quit the job was due to losing the Reload animation on guns. I'll not mourn the stupid disk, but I liked the idea of the stance back in Heavenward. Honestly they could have just turned it into an Aiming Stance of some kind, pitched the disk, and avoided that whole side of the complaints.

And now we get to the big one. That "OH MCH doesn't play like MCH". Oh, no. MCH doesn't feel like other games MCHs...., wait other games MCHs? What other game MCHs?

No, people didn't complain that MCH wasn't like other MCHs, they complained that MCH wasn't Edgar. MCH's only been in a couple games and with no real defining set up to them besides Gun. But Edgar is the poster boy of the Job so why shouldn't we make him into the job, we want Edgar even though all the Jobs largely feel like their own version or take on their own job. And the devs just went through this form of franchise key jingling in shadowbringers.

"Look we put in the reference you wanted, it's the thing you like, from the guy you know! See, see? Are you happy now?" Jingle Jingle and people eat it up.

And..., well I would think it rather rude of me to make that comparison considering FF14 is basically an entire game of nods, references, quips, cameos, and just a celbration of the entire history of Final Fantasy. But, to try and do my homework here;
-No one seems to be asking for Dolphin Blow on Monk.
-No one seems to want for Mog's Dances on Dancer
-No one cares that Eye of the Dragon is way more thematic and core to DRG's identity in this game than Jumps actually are.
-No one's asking for Shadow Ninja

....Oh but melee Chainsaw channel was a missed opportunity on MCH. Hmmm. I wonder why.

(Okay see there was supposed to be an image of Edgar using his chainsaw here BUT I can't seem to get images to work but I think you can get the idea)

Honestly if people wanted Edgar MCH..., geeze I would have loved to see a Tank version of that