Shots Fired: A Machinist Guide

[arctic]

I want to point out that in the change log it was mentioned:

"With the addition of crit it seemed that higher crit skewed the results in favor of having Gauss Barrel active; it means that higher iLvl will result in quite a large gap between not having Gauss Barrel active and having it active."

So if this is true then the effectiveness of Gauss Barrel mostly relies on gear. So experience and practicality may vary based on the individual.

tldr; if you lack in gear Gauss Barrel might only be useful as an opener, if you are very geared you may benefit from trying to keep Gauss Barrel up often.

[arctic]

Cascadi during your tests were you able to determine what the minimum crit range was in order for Gauss Barrel to become effective to cycle in frequently? Or just have it stay on if possible?

[Cascadi]

Cascadi during your tests were you able to determine what the minimum crit range was in order for Gauss Barrel to become effective to cycle in frequently? Or just have it stay on if possible?

The minimum crit for GB to be better than no GB assuming that Ricochet was used whenever off CD was predicted to be around 10%, and the parses in game I've done seem to point that way as well. To show the true intent of what I think Square Enix intended with Gauss Barrel, go into an instance with Echo and parse, it will become really apparent that having Gauss Barrel on is big.

Here are two 4 minute parses with the same crit % with around the same number of procs used with i180 weapon, i160 belt + i170 rest left side and i160 earrings/ring + i170 ring/bracelets/neck, no party no food no pots. However, in practical fights at the moment, Gauss Barrel doesn't seem to be very viable as a couple of lost weaponskills will drag down the DPS. That's why Gauss Barrel needs a buff as well as Wanderer's Minuet for Bard.

w/ GB full time


w/ GB only on during opener + whenever Wildfire used

[Divebombs]

So I'm i176 with an i180 Kai weapon. I've tried parsing on a dummy using Gauss Barrel as an opener only, using Gauss barrel toggled in time with my CDs, and using Gauss full times. I can't find a noticeable difference between the parses (820-840 each time).

Which is truly best, and am I doing something wrong to have numbers so low?

[Bissani]

Want to know your opinion about rapid fire: i noticed that during the opener while having RF up and popping all the others CDs usually i'm gonna lose a bit on the gcd for the next ws (even if i pop only one cd between ws).
So, if GB gets more relevant as we get better gear, isn't better to keep RF out of opener and use it when you need to move? (obviously only if u have GB up)
(I know that at the moment GB is a dps loss if used out of opener but will be always like this?)

[Caitlyn]

Rapid-Fire doesnt affect Gauss-Barrel any more. Thanks SE : (
Now we have to hard-cast GB, which makes MCH even more worse T_T

Dont get me wrong, I love playing MCH. But SE must make some adjustments!

I mean, come on! Even the paladin does more damage than the machinist O_O

[Shhikasan]

Rapid-Fire doesnt affect Gauss-Barrel any more. Thanks SE : (
Now we have to hard-cast GB, which makes MCH even more worse T_T

Dont get me wrong, I love playing MCH. But SE must make some adjustments!

I mean, come on! Even the paladin does more damage than the machinist O_O

with the case of ravana ex and bismarck ex there are moements where you could hardcast GB i know bismarck is a easy one when you have dots on you from being on the back you'll have to wait 4-6 seconds before you can jump on awayways that is the perfect time to GB and unload on bismarck back. with ravana there is VERY VERY little room to hardcast GB. and probably the start to keep gb on till rest of the fight case rest of the fight usually has you moving a ton.

[Ooshima]

with the case of ravana ex and bismarck ex there are moements where you could hardcast GB i know bismarck is a easy one when you have dots on you from being on the back you'll have to wait 4-6 seconds before you can jump on awayways that is the perfect time to GB and unload on bismarck back. with ravana there is VERY VERY little room to hardcast GB. and probably the start to keep gb on till rest of the fight case rest of the fight usually has you moving a ton.

I can't recall off hand but there's quite a few openings to hardcast GB in Ravana EX

You can keep GB on from the start all the way until he finish his ifrit style dashes actually.

But if you prefer to turn it off after the opener then as much as I can recall off hand:

- After he finishes his Prelude to Liberation and disappears and you deal with the purple circles, you can hard cast GB and go nuts on him as he comes back and charges for Liberation and does his ifrit style dashes. You can keep GB on for the entire of phase 3 if you are confident not to screw up during the all-seeing stances, which you should try to, since this is adds phase without any dodging mechanics.

- Phase 4 isn't a GB friendly phase due to knockbacks, stacking for Laughing Rose, prey movements and Rose of Hate. Prob should turn it off

- Swift liberation: you can hardcast during the time he charges and can probably keep it until you have to deal with Final Liberation prey mechanic

- Final Liberation: You can hardcast GB when he does the lunar dynamo thing but the 2nd one when you have to stay at the edge and keep it until the pillars of heaven knockback again.

[Divebombs]

I've toyed around with various different rotations re: GB in Ravana and can say the only point at which I HAD to turn it off at all was at the orbs, at which point I will keep it off for awhile as the fight gets pretty movement intense after that.

[Ryaz]

Feint doesn't get a cast time I believe, so you can use it while moving. So if you're using GB and have to move a lot and cast get a cast off, you can use Feint as a stop gap until you can. Rapid Fire removes the normal cast time for the next three weapon skills, which allows you to move as well.