Machinist needs some reworking

[Ayden]

I personally still think turning our self into a robot is better than summoning it whereby we don't need to worry about Pet AI at all.

Normal Hypercharge --> Heat blast [gcd] x5

After becoming robot:
Upgraded Hypercharge --> (Heat blast [gcd] --> Upgraded heat blast [gcd] COMBO) x5 --> Ranged Pile Bunker --> Ranged Crowned Collider

[CKNovel]

ts no mystery that mechanist as a class feels good but lacks any possible growth. it is in dire need of another rework. after maining the class after the initial rework and played it when it first came out i think there is a way to fix this, my favorite class in the game.

Let's see a bit those ideas...

1. There is a problem with the rook: It's a pet.
Unless they bring the rook like Carbuncle doing nothing without orders, I doubt rook would be interesting.
During SB they tried to tie more action to it and it was a micro management nightmare.

2. There is a problem with the Queen: It's a pet.
Full control or no control, if it's like Phoenix I welcome it.
If it's like ShB SMN pets with a long delay, no thank you.

I want the Queen to be more than a glorified dot, but it needs to be done right.

3. Same as 2, those "battery abilities" could be like Phoenix Revelation.

4. You can keep detonation. It's never needed since it's automatically used at the end of the effect.
It exist so that if you're about to finish the enemy, you can trigger it earlier.

5. Wouldn't change a thing. 60s with a 65% fall-off won't make better dungeons. It's around 570 potency on main target and 200 on other targets.
If you want aoes in dungeons: Make Queen's Collider an aoe. Solves the lack of battery spender for aoe.

Your feedback basically boils down to one big problem, lack of control on the Automaton Queen. (And some other things that would not change a lot of things like 4 and 5)
I doubt anyone disagrees that the Automaton Queen is not engaging, I've yet to see AQ defenders.

[Jirah]

I personally still think turning our self into a robot is better than summoning it whereby we don't need to worry about Pet AI at all.

Normal Hypercharge --> Heat blast [gcd] x5

After becoming robot:
Upgraded Hypercharge --> (Heat blast [gcd] --> Upgraded heat blast [gcd] COMBO) x5 --> Ranged Pile Bunker --> Ranged Crowned Collider

*sigh* for the 1..2..3..70th time this is essentially lesser Enshroud which doesn’t sound like a good idea taking what was good from RPR and doing bugger all

[Jirah]

During SB they tried to tie more action to it and it was a micro management nightmare.

Come again? SB had approximately 3 actions for the turrets with a aoe and ST (single target) counter end. Hypercharge every 120s and Overdrive every 120s and deploying the thing in the first place after the 30s reset was finished. The actions were so far from eachother the only thing you had to manage was deploying your turret after it was destroyed after those very long 2min cycles. Nothing about it was hard or remotely nightmarish imo

[CKNovel]

Come again? SB had approximately 3 actions for the turrets with a aoe and ST (single target) counter end. Hypercharge every 120s and Overdrive every 120s and deploying the thing in the first place after the 30s reset was finished. The actions were so far from eachother the only thing you had to manage was deploying your turret after it was destroyed after those very long 2min cycles. Nothing about it was hard or remotely nightmarish imo

It wasn't hard, it was annoying.
Every beginning of pulls you had to place turret, reload and put on the gauss barrel. Then the group needed to wait 30 seconds for your cooldown to be back.

A popular feedback was to simply disable the turret and to not drop Gauss Barrel after overheat. And the Flamethrower being an instant overheat button.
Those request were never fulfilled during SB.

But even then two points:
-What's the point of the Turret when you can have the ability used by yourself? What if Overdrive was simply a 120s damage cooldown, same for Hypercharge? Simple, it would've been more practical with a better control over the job.
-Even with those QoLs, SB MCH had terrible fillers. 1 2 3 / Gauss round -> Reload every 30 seconds (which is just tied to 1 2 3) -> Wildfire combo every 60s -> Hypercharge every 120s.

Rook was not great and had no purpose after HW other than AA and Hypercharge, that's why they added overload.
The best part of SB MCH was the Wildfire combo, the filler phase was terrible, even more than current MCH.

[Jirah]

It wasn't hard, it was annoying.
Every beginning of pulls you had to place turret, reload and put on the gauss barrel. Then the group needed to wait 30 seconds for your cooldown to be back.

A popular feedback was to simply disable the turret and to not drop Gauss Barrel after overheat. And the Flamethrower being an instant overheat button.
Those request were never fulfilled during SB.

.

Personally I never found it that annoying or “nightmareish” due to HW Gauss barrel still retained it’s toggle-ability and carried over to SB which ultimately made no sense as theirs no reason to have it off that part, even then wasn’t that bad on execution. Actually never really took issue with the turret system in SB. Yea it was shallow but with Hypercharge complimented wildfire rather than being toothless and Bishop Aoe Vuln shocks were fun to use with pulls.

Technically they did “fix” these issue with the removal of Gauss barrel, Hypercharge doing the Stun Gun thing of insta-overheat just in time for heat to not be nearly as potent, and turrets getting fixed by being less involved and more lateral. As for your points

1.) This approach would just defeat turrets whole system and purpose, like asking “instead of SMN getting summons why can’t we just cast Inferno by ourself?” The argument caves in on itself

2.)Agreed that SB filler was Gnarly and was one of my biggest wishes in SB for them to overhaul it somehow. SHB fixed this by giving us what 6 OGCDs and 2 GCDs? And another GCD in EW? There’s filler then theirs blatant fat. I’ll take reloading over baseless skill spamming like a healer main.

In SHB the filler IS the draw, you almost never change pace and the best part about MCH is pressing reassemble followed by 1/3 of your Drill skills while other jobs (excluding SMN) are flourishing

[Sorzai]

The whole MCH job needs a rework, not built upon. It's by far the worst job to play, not because it's difficult, not because the job fantasy isn't enticing. It's because nothing about Machinist is fun to play, the job skills and rotation doesn't feel satisfying, or impactful, there's also no benefit to the group. Machinist's identity is confusing, is it a machinist? a gunner? pure ranged dps? or is it a supportive dps? Also i'm not sure if anyone else has the same sentiment but i absolutely hate the heat blast spam and wildfire. It is such a let down because there is nothing the rotation is building up to.

[Raikai]

Machinist's identity is confusing, is it a machinist? a gunner?

Machinist's thematic identity is probably the thing that the ShB rework got pretty on point, because it actually feels like a proper machinist with gadgets, tools, robots for its big hits while using guns for the filler attacks.

There are many issues, ranging from potency adjustments to the gameplay, but I defnitely think that the job's theme is not one of those.

[CKNovel]

Thematically, MCH had nothing of a MCH until ShB.
It used a gun and a flying automaton, it was a gunner, not a machinist. Except Flamethrower but it is currently among the worst abilities that ever existed, Anatman being probably the first. Now the problem is turned on its head, it's a Machinist with a gun.

Gameplay wise, yeah... Automaton Queen is a dot on a CD, Flamethrower is garbage, Wildfire is underwhelming/unfulfilling, Heatblast is not fun.
ShB MCH only needed to expand and fix some things here and there.

Instead, EW MCH kepts digging its grave by making Automaton Queen even worse, fixing no issues and doing questionnable choices:
-Reassemble second charge, Scattergun and Tactician improved are welcome but were unnecessary. Especially Tacticians, why -30 seconds on cooldown justify a slot being occupied while other jobs gets upgrade for free?
-Crown Collider makes the Queen worse for many reasons.
-Chainsaw is the only good ability that came out of EW, but even then many players would have preferred a different chainsaw.

SQEX really needs to reconnect with the playerbase as I have yet to see anyone happy with the changes as a whole.

[Raikai]

Scattergun and Tactician improved are welcome but were unnecessary.

Oh, but Scattergun upgrade is something that is expected from every job and that people look forward to: animation upgrade. It could've been just a potency adjustment baked in a trait, but hey... I'm SO happy with Scattergun, because I always thought that Spread Shot looked very underwhelming for the basic AoE filler and also felt weird for it to come from the type of gun that the MCH wields.

The EW iteration of MCH tbh feels like if there was a designer that did it for ShB but they weren't asked to continue the job in EW.