M6s in PF is the most miserable and unfun high end fight in the game

[mallleable]

I can burst nigh endlessly on BLM. In my very outdated, last-tier gear, I obliterate packs in Expert roulette in mere seconds.

I could go on but jobs have AoE capabilities. Maybe people just don't know how to play them and coordinate their AoE burst/gauge at the relevant times?

Probably should have specified they're missing this kind of damage in between of odd, and even minutes where is actually kind of matters. I sure do wish Barrage had a shorter cooldown, then I might actually feel like I can help kill stuff.

[YukioKobayashi]

Machinist has got Chain Saw (600), Flamethrower (1000), Full Metal Field (900), Auto Crossbow+Checkmate spam, Bloblaster.

MCH AoE sucks and noone can deny it.
There is nothing you can hold on MCH except a Drill/Bioblaster charge without making every 2Min afterwards awkward af. (Edit: And the Chain Saw follow-up i guess)
Bioblaster has a 12y range .. good luck using it whenever you want like a DNC using his Saber Dance.
Crossbow needs 6 targets to be worth using over ST Blazing Shot. BRD and DNC need 2 for most if not all their AOE skills in comparison.
MCH has to interrupt his Heated Combo to use Scattergun while BRD is free to Ladonsbite whenever he wants. Both BRD and DNC are getting procs with ST Skills that can be used on ST and AoE.
And dont get me started on Flamethrower.... 100pps 250p per GCD while not generating any gauge.

[brinn12]

Flamethrower 1000, full metal field 900? Full metal field = 1 ranged GCD, guaranteed critical direct hit. Flamethrower = 10 seconds, pretty much a melee ability.

With what Physical Rangeds are required to do, most MCHs don't use Flamethrower in M6S. It would have to be a very niche case and they probably wouldn't want to hold it for its full potency either. The job needs at minimum a 10% boost in AoE to match DNC, regardless of those "big" numbers.

[Ath192]

Well I like the difficulty level. It's a good fight. Savage is expected to be hard so if some people cant clear it so be it.

[Valence]

Akshtually, Flamethrower is 1100 potency. Over 10s, which makes it closer to 250ish every standard GCD btw. It's not exactly a single GCD nuke with high pps.

It doesn't really bother me if it's instant gib or just a heavy bleed type thing but the problem with "soft" punishments like Bleeds, Damage Downs or Vulns is they risk allowing for an "ignore mechanic" strat or "braindead strat". Really great examples of that are in the latest extreme trial, where you can simply ignore the effects of the donut AoEs and walk through them, and you don't even need tank LB3 to ignore the vulns in the last mechanic. It's arguably soft punishments like that which help make extreme trials as trivial as many people view them.

With a little thought it becomes less of a problem when the designer introduces more and more variables and variations. If the damage stacks or bleeds are tolerable at one stack, perhaps they become increasingly lethal very fast, on a scale that will be "ignorable" in later expansions at best. And perhaps groups can deal with one more stack with better gear but not more (it's like aurum vale when stacks where still relevant). It's a problem with how SE designs punishing debuffs currently: they are only created around individual mechanics without any thought for the whole encounter. If your debuffs stay longer, and start stacking with other mechanics giving them out like pancakes, then it becomes another story instead of having them disappear after clearing the next mechanic properly. Then perhaps you can have a bit of actual debuff and failure management going on.
M2S is a good example on how to make creative failure stacks as well, where every failure goes to stack on the boss during heart phases and results in increase damage AND the boss healing herself near the end by consuming them.
There is so many design levers they can use and yet refuse to. Perhaps your two adds can heal each other with the damage they deal until they get split. Perhaps they give each other damage buffs that are permanent as long as they're together. Perhaps they deal raid wide % based AOE as long as they're not separated (good luck changing anything to % based with overgear or unsync). I mean hell, remember O7S adds? Fail to clear the summoning circles and you get additional adds? Fail to split the mobs and they start reproducing?

[Volgia]

I hope we get some actually meaningful job buffs next week to make this less painful. It feel like some jobs are just straight up missing cleave, and burst damage to handle killing adds, and were just not tested in this fight.

When people get their tome weapons, the adds will just melt. I've gone through adds with MCH and BRDs (where as DNCs are just king), and they adds still die really fast.

[Doomfist]

God last night had the shittiest pfs, a2c groups and lava groups alike that can't pass adds, and prog liars galore. Even anychest pfs kept messing up.

But finally today I entered an a2c group with 7 other people who've been stuck on this fight for weeks. We were all clear ready except for the pf leader, who kept messing up lava. What followed was a journey of the leader slowly learning and getting better at lava, while we all stuck together for multiple lockouts until FINALLY, the leader learned lava. And on the third lockout right before dinner, the 8 of us finally cleared M6S.

The state of M6S PF was utterly miserable, after last night I was very close to becoming a casual with no content to do, or at least an extreme-only raider. Until the stars aligned and I got the magical, golden PF with people who fulfil the three criteria of 1. Being good and consistent 2. Being willing to learn and communicate and 3. Having the time, patience, and good enough internet to raid.

[Volgia]

God last night had the shittiest pfs, a2c groups and lava groups alike that can't pass adds, and prog liars galore. Even anychest pfs kept messing up.

But finally today I entered an a2c group with 7 other people who've been stuck on this fight for weeks. We were all clear ready except for the pf leader, who kept messing up lava. What followed was a journey of the leader slowly learning and getting better at lava, while we all stuck together for multiple lockouts until FINALLY, the leader learned lava. And on the third lockout right before dinner, the 8 of us finally cleared M6S.

The state of M6S PF was utterly miserable, after last night I was very close to becoming a casual with no content to do, or at least an extreme-only raider. Until the stars aligned and I got the magical, golden PF with people who fulfil the three criteria of 1. Being good and consistent 2. Being willing to learn and communicate and 3. Having the time, patience, and good enough internet to raid.

This happened to me a few times. Somewhere in PF players mind they think that getting through adds is "Basically a clear", so they will trap you at lava by failing their jumps.

[Aco505]

The strength of MCH in this fight is not its cleave damage but its ability to store gauge and dispatch key single target threats easily, something the other two p. range are going to have more trouble with due to their lower personal damage. MCH can still contribute to some cleave after this fact but it will not be as good as DNC with all its cleaves. While Mu/cleave damage is important, it is far from the only thing that matters to successfully clear this fight.

The data we have simply cannot easily show this and so it seems like MCH is awful for the add phase when it's actually fine.

[Eastwall]

True but good people in PF shouldn't be gated for weeks on end because a fight is designed seemingly only for statics or PF with week 7 gear. It makes good players who can't static and don't have 12 hours a day to PF week 1 want to unsubscribe. I kinda do right now. 2% for days now is killing me. I spent 10 hours progging TEA to clear and 15 hours doing this. TEA was fun even in PF. This blows.

I spent 80 hours on p3s. Well, that did make me quit raiding