MCH completely useless

[Shhikasan]

well you have to think there are more brds then mch since you know they could of been rolling a brd since the game's relaunch.
for me it kinda of hit me hard because I played brd a lot from 2.1 up till nin and then with HW I leveled Mch and planned on maining it.
and boy am i salty as leveling another dps would be very grindy to play to 60.

BUT I'm willing to stick it out seeing as I've been seeing somewhat that mch in good rng without its gauss can do some nice dps compared to a non WM brd(cause face it brd and mch aren't made to be casters at all unless we start using mp and allowed to us tp to sprint movement is pretty a pain and in real fights leaving wm/Gauss is better only in real fights with ton of movements which is gonna be all of them).

Personally if they wanted to changed something make gauss and WM just a pure dmg buff give us our auto attacks back and no cast times. I'd be just happy with just behind melee dps not Behind tank dps and White mage spamming stone 3.

[SovereignAegis]

Behind tank dps and White mage spamming stone 3.

I actually outdamage the vast majority of MCH in neverreap as a scholar... spamming a 170 potency broil. 170 potency. It's asinine.

White Mages stone is what. 210 potency?

[Sylve]

I actually outdamage the vast majority of MCH in neverreap as a scholar... spamming a 170 potency broil. 170 potency. It's asinine.

White Mages stone is what. 210 potency?

So uhh, a 140 potency shot every 2.5 seconds combined with the Turrets 80 Potency Shot in the same timeframe, a combined 220 Potency ... Fails to outdps you spamming a potency 170 spell? Mathematically, this makes zero sense.

Not to mention Gauss Round for 200 potency every 20 seconds, Head Graze for 100 potency every 25, a 40 potency DoT ticking away the whole time, a flat 5% bonus to all damage dealt and the random occurrences of Slug and Clean Shot procs along with the forced procs while ALSO using RS, BfB, Hawk's Eye, Reassemble, Rapid Fire and Wildfire ....

Starting to lean more into the "They have no idea WTF they're doing as a Machinist".

[RiceisNice]

...

Then you need to factor that machinist's weapon damage stats are in the low values similar to bard; a white mage in cleric stance has better scaling than this with a 170 potency.

Gauss Barrel is a dps loss if you keep it beyond the intial burst. Using round/ricochet off cooldown assumes that you're keeping it on for the entire fight.

Half those buffs aren't exclusive to machinist, nor would any decent one would use it to buff split shot exclusively if that is what you're getting at.

The problem I see is with machinist (aside from me lagging behind compared to other dps classes) is that I always find myself busting my ass (aligning cooldowns, pre pull burst, pots, all of that) just to get under them in dps, and some of our burst straight up does't apply unless you make adjustments (meaning lower it's overall damage) because some vulnerability phases simply do not last long enough for wildfire (neverreap's first boss and bismarack EX come to mind). I never find myself using gauss barrel outside of burst or AoE because the auto attack loss isn't made up with the increased damage or the two skills. And the only time I do use it again after the initial burst is either in combination with my cooldowns (which I'm sure is a bug with rapid fire making GB instant cast), or when there is signifcant downtime where I can't attack the boss...and use it for burst.

[Ephier]

Gauss Barrel is a dps loss if you keep it beyond the intial burst. Using round/ricochet off cooldown assumes that you're keeping it on for the entire fight..

Not quite. MCN can stance dance with rapid fire, and it is indeed an increase to swap gauss barrel on to use those 2 cooldowns then take it off. Also in AoE applications, gauss barrel is definitely more damage.

[RiceisNice]

Not quite. MCN can stance dance with rapid fire, and it is indeed an increase to swap gauss barrel on to use those 2 cooldowns then take it off. Also in AoE applications, gauss barrel is definitely more damage.

But that's using GB for burst... If you try to use it any other time outside of bursting it's just not worth it. We're talking a 90s cooldown on using those two abilties (which happen to allign with b4b, HE and WF), and not much else after that. And even then, I'm pretty sure rapid fire making GB instant is still a bug since it's not a weapon skill.

[Sylve]

Words

The ONLY thing you lose from Gauss Barrel is auto attack.
When you take off GB, you lose access to an entire 200 potency shot which also gains 20% damage from the Barrel, you lose damage on Lead Shot and pointlessly sacrifice 20% bonus damage on Slug and Clean since those are instant under Ammo effects.

Losing 185 damage (at 57 with a HQ54 gun because there is all of one 56 NQ gun on the MBs right now) per 2~ seconds is made up in spades by the boost to damage literally everything else gets, including Wildfire.

Trying to dance back and forth with Gauss Barrel causes you to lose a flat 2 shots due to the 3 second cast as well as any Autos you would have fired just doesn't make sense to me.
In a fight with extended periods of running, I can see dropping Gauss Barrel as a viable tactic to keep DPS up, but i cannot see how wasting 3 seconds every 20 seconds to put on GB for a Gauss Round is more DPS than simply staying in GB until movement gives you reason to take it off.

Also, yes I'm fully aware than the MCH/BRD weapons are a flat -6 compared to like level weapons for all other Jobs including tanks.

PS: Don't go trying to throw those Reddit parses around as "proof", as i pointed out last time, the test was flawed in that he only tested once per mode and for differing duration's.

[Ephier]

words

'-'. I assume you do not know the ins and outs of MCN dps. Let me enlighten you. Under the effect of rapid fire, gauss barrel is instant, there is no 3 second cast. So, while you are mid fight, you line up b4b, hawkeye, rapid fire, and wild fire. While the rapid fire is up you can go in to use gauss barrel for ricochet and gauss round, use the procs you gain from rapid fire, then drop it back off for 90s until the next rapid fire. This is not an argument, it is proven already gauss barrel for an entire fight is a dps loss, no gauss barrel at all is a dps loss. The optimal way to play MCN right now is rapid fire stance dancing.

http://puu.sh/iDkEm/8cf80d3afa.jpg
(using 160 for crit/det, dont need the acc from i180.)
Yours truly, the short lala MCN.

[Sylve]

Under the effect of rapid fire, gauss barrel is instant, there is no 3 second cast

This i did not know. Given how it states Weaponskills, i had assumed Gauss Barrel would not be included, so thanks for that.

[Viridiana]

Losing 185 damage (at 57 with a HQ54 gun because there is all of one 56 NQ gun on the MBs right now) per 2~ seconds is made up in spades by the boost to damage literally everything else gets, including Wildfire.

Not having played MCH at all, I can only comment on math. You're doing 185 on average with a 2.8 weapon? If we say the average GCD is somewhere around 2.45 to account for SS, then you need to be doing (2.45/2.8)*185 extra damage per GCD under Gauss Barrel in order for it to make sense using it. That's 161.875 *extra* damage that Gauss Barrel would need to give you every GCD for it to be worth the loss in AA damage, right? Extra damage from Gauss Barrel is 20%, 161.875 is 20% of 809.375. So, in a perfect world with no movement, you would need to be doing 809 damage per GCD, not including AA, before GB becomes worth it, based on your 185 average damage with a 2.8 weapon. And of course, Raging Strikes and Hawk's Eye can't help you reach this number, because they would also boost the 185 number.