Bring difficulty back to job rotations, not just boss mechanics.

[Valence]

Playing MCH in SB was a nightmare truthfully. The entire design doesn't work with ping being the constraint that it is for people outside of the local server areas, and that fed not only into your burst phase where it was functionally impossible to get a full Wildfire off because you couldn't fit enough GCD with the server communication, but you had inevitable drift due to the same. That's entirely ignoring that party buffs could send you hyper-light drifting into an entirely different area code by messing up your heat generation and GCD prep for Heated Shots.

It was poor design then and would be poor design now.

There was high latency rotations that worked at any ping, which was something that ShB MCH couldn't actually claim to have until SE finally decided to add the much request heat stacks instead of strict timers in EW. The drift was accounted for especially in the 3 ammo rotations (the superior versions, 2 ammo was just not it).
Now I'm not gonna argue that the FT overheat trick wasn't anything but clunky - and potentially frustrating, I should know, I've played the job on NA at 200m ping - mind you, but the concept behind SB MCH is the best concept this job has ever seen.

[ForsakenRoe]

Funny thing is, you could also have Flamethrower be actually useful again by adjusting how it works slightly. SE is to blame for the state it languishes in now.

Example rework:

Flamethrower is a true OGCD again (does not trigger the GCD at all)
Flamethrower deals 150p damage to all enemies in the cone instantly, and then 80p per second thereafter as you channel the action (max 10s of channel time)
Flamethrower's initial hit deals 3x damage if the target suffers from Bioblaster

Wow, now you have a choice between a Drill, and a Bio-FT combo, at the 60s mark. If you have a Reassemble, you can use it on Drill, yes, but you'd also have Chainsaw and Excavator at the 60s mark, which also ask for Reassemble. Thus, your options would be a non-Reassembled Drill at 620p, or a Bioblaster (for a total of 300p) plus a Flamethrower (instant hit of 450p due to Bio's DOT being active, plus potentially 1-2 ticks if you stand still and channel it until the next GCD), totalling at minimum 700p, and potentially reaching 840p depending on channel time. This would make it so that, in the 60s burst window, you'd spend your 2 Drill charges on one Drill, a Bioblaster and a Flamethrower (and small channel), rather than on the current 2 Drills.

This would also help to shore up MCH's abysmal AOE capabilities a bit (but not as much as making AutoCrossbow recharge Checkmate/DoubleCheck would, SE pls)

[Remarus]

There was high latency rotations that worked at any ping, which was something that ShB MCH couldn't actually claim to have until SE finally decided to add the much request heat stacks instead of strict timers in EW. The drift was accounted for especially in the 3 ammo rotations (the superior versions, 2 ammo was just not it).
Now I'm not gonna argue that the FT overheat trick wasn't anything but clunky - and potentially frustrating, I should know, I've played the job on NA at 200m ping - mind you, but the concept behind SB MCH is the best concept this job has ever seen.

Very heavily agree to disagree. SB MCH was the absolute worst this job has seen. A more interesting thing would be to bring back gun-mage using the mechanics they've introduced in PvP in combination with the Gauss Barrel. Barrel on and we have cast bars but higher DPS, barrel off and we have mobility but lower damage. MCH should play like SAM and BLM in that we have to plan out our rotations and movements in exchange for being the selfish DPS.

[Selsix]

Honestly I agree with the sentiment in the OP. I really want jobs to be more difficult and reward you heavily for successful micromanagement. We've gotten to a point where jobs are homogenized and so simple a monkey could play them optimally and I'm really not a fan of this design philosophy at all. Putting all the difficulty on the fights and making jobs themselves brainless is way too lopsided.

[Xieldras]

Which might be fine for the people who already like playing SAM and BLM, but for those of us who don't...

I don't understand why, since everyone is angry at the homogenization, we still get "This class should play similarily to other classes!".
Isn't that the very mindset that leads to homogenization? Why can't MCH have its own playstyle? (Also I liked the HW MCH with the bullets system). Not to mention that Ranged is a group of jobs that benefit from (mostly) complete uptime, how would we plan out the movements when it's so freely given to us?

Not angry or anything, genuinely confused.

[Daralii]

Which might be fine for the people who already like playing SAM and BLM, but for those of us who don't...

Then it's a good thing there are 18 other jobs. BLM, SAM, and MCH getting some of their old identity back will not instantaneously make those roles completely inaccessible.

[Azurarok]

I think it's already been said plenty of times that "just play something else" isn't the answer some people think it is, because eventually one runs out of jobs they actually like to play and there's "nowhere else to go".

And it's also been said plenty of times "the damage has been done (but not for me) let's not make it worse (so it stays that way)" is also not the answer you think it is

[Supersnow845]

I think it's already been said plenty of times that "just play something else" isn't the answer some people think it is, because eventually one runs out of jobs they actually like to play and there's "nowhere else to go".

Yet somehow this is always the answer when it comes to simplifying jobs

Oh you don’t like how SMN is more “thematic” (read copy garnet) now but way easier, just play BLM.

Oh you don’t like how much more simple BLM is, just play………….WOW?

[RedLolly]

Which might be fine for the people who already like playing SAM and BLM, but for those of us who don't...

Precisely. I have all three jobs capped and will swap to MCH when I am learning fights because of the physical ranged moment. The instant you need to plan positions on a physical ranged, it isn't one anymore. Even PVP lets MCH walk while casting.

[Supersnow845]

And it's not an appropriate answer for them either. Nobody should be losing their jobs period because again, there may not be something else they can just pick up and play instead.

Honestly I don’t really see the point of trying to “both sides”this issue when these changes have been entirely unilateral

There are people who like easy jobs and there are people who like hard jobs, people who like easy jobs have near endless options at the expense of people who like hard jobs to the point the only hard job is BRD and the healing half of SCH

Something has to give if they ever swing the pendulum back and I think that better falls into the realm of fairness of rebalancing the scales. You can’t take 15 hard jobs and make them all easy then when people want hard jobs back go “oh well what about the people who liked said easy job”