What is wrong about making machinist good?

[Shurrikhan]

I disagree having one of the two charges be single target while the other is AoE with the same potency.

And yet that's what we had from the class's start in Heavensward all the way up until Dawntrail without issue?

One is meant to be situationally but objectively better than the other. Just as Chainsaw is situationally and objectively better than Drill even in terms of direct damage alone. They do not share cooldowns, so what would be the harm in that?

what I would have envisioned for both charges would have been something similar to Fan Dance, where heat blast regens gauss round as normal, and using gauss round has a chance to proc ricochet, for example.

I feel like 90% of the point of Heat Blast is just to enforce a 1213121312 rhythm between it and alternatingly Gauss Round and Ricochet. Is that a button-flow you dislike, or...?

[Valence]

And yet that's what we had from the class's start in Heavensward all the way up until Dawntrail without issue?

One is meant to be situationally but objectively better than the other. Just as Chainsaw is situationally and objectively better than Drill even in terms of direct damage alone. They do not share cooldowns, so what would be the harm in that?

It was different in HW because both abilities were on different timers and weren't tied to any class mechanic. They were just two different OGCDs that you used on cd. I'm not gonna pretend this was interesting in the slightest, although the way ricochet did AOE sure was exotic. Ricochet wasn't meant to be better than gauss precisely because ricochet had four times the recast and used to also be a lvl60 capstone (weak, but it was a capstone if just visually).

Chainsaw is similarly better than Drill because Chainsaw is on a different, longer recast.

I feel like 90% of the point of Heat Blast is just to enforce a 1213121312 rhythm between it and alternatingly Gauss Round and Ricochet. Is that a button-flow you dislike, or...?

I grew up with HW/SB MCH where I had to use my brain on proc priorities. 12131213 is brainless spamm that only gives carpal tunnel as far as i'm concerned and the presence of the second ability is just there to pretend that's more interesting than a DRK/GNB burst.

[Carighan]

I grew up with HW/SB MCH where I had to use my brain on proc priorities. 12131213 is brainless spamm that only gives carpal tunnel as far as i'm concerned and the presence of the second ability is just there to pretend that's more interesting than a DRK/GNB burst.

That's something I fully agree on, and a huge problem of FFXIV class design in general: So many abilities just exist to, well, keep your fingers busy. Mentally, pressing 1213 repeatedly is no more stimulating than... just pressing 1? Or if we desperate, absolutely, have to use more than one button, then you might as well do the Heat Blast be different buttons for say, 3 shots. So you press 1-2-3. Boring either way, but well, people apparently love their carpal-tunnel inducing "design", although if I were a class designer on any MMORPG, I'd be insulted by the stuff the FFXIV devs call their design, being just oGCD weaving with exactly 0 brain engagement.

They couldn't even get themselves to make an actual proc out of the MCH CD-reduction. If at least the -CD was a proc that's not guaranteed, and can randomly affect either, none or both of the oGCDs, we'd at least have to pay attention instead of just marginally change the pacing of the semi-sleep that is playing Machinist.

[Raikai]

That's something I fully agree on, and a huge problem of FFXIV class design in general: So many abilities just exist to, well, keep your fingers busy. Mentally, pressing 1213 repeatedly is no more stimulating than... just pressing 1? Or if we desperate, absolutely, have to use more than one button, then you might as well do the Heat Blast be different buttons for say, 3 shots. So you press 1-2-3. Boring either way, but well, people apparently love their carpal-tunnel inducing "design", although if I were a class designer on any MMORPG, I'd be insulted by the stuff the FFXIV devs call their design, being just oGCD weaving with exactly 0 brain engagement.

They couldn't even get themselves to make an actual proc out of the MCH CD-reduction. If at least the -CD was a proc that's not guaranteed, and can randomly affect either, none or both of the oGCDs, we'd at least have to pay attention instead of just marginally change the pacing of the semi-sleep that is playing Machinist.

I agree. That's why I feel that the 123 rotations that don't interact with anything else (so not MNK and SAM for example, with their branching paths) should be merged into one single converting button. Like some are even halfway through this. PLD's atonement combo is literally an improved basic combo - fulfills the same role - and yet it's condensed. If people are so keen on having such mindless 123 buttons separate, just allow them with the tech we have already to un-merge some merged actions.

I personally don't think pressing 3 separate keys, right next to each other, in a sequence is more interesting than pressing the same key 3 times. But I also don't want this merging just for the sake of it - it should be done to make room for more rotational stuff.