A question regarding MCH and post-opener CD management

[Myon88]

Pretty much, odd numbered Wildfires will be stronger due to lining up with Reload and Raging Strikes, and every 5th Wildfire will be really strong since you'll have a repeat of your opener where everything (including Hypercharge) lines up again.

Of course all this assumes you're using everything immediately as it comes off cooldown. If a fights has phase changes or circumstances where it might be beneficial to delay the use of a cooldown slightly - then you can do that provided you have a good understanding of when to do so. No fight is going to let you stand still and wail on the boss for 6+ minutes, so what separates exceptional machinists from mediocre ones is how good you are at improvising your use of cooldowns based on circumstances.

As a general rule of thumb, I find it's useful to think of the MCH 'rotation' in 30 second blocks of time defined by your Hot Shot and Lead Shot refreshes. Something like this, you'll see that 6:00 is basically identical to your opener and the point where everything begins to repeat.

0:00 - Hot Shot, Lead Shot + BFB, HE, RS, HC, Rapid Fire, Reload, Reassemble, Wildfire
0:30 - Hot Shot, Lead Shot
1:00 - Hot Shot, Lead Shot + Reload, Reassemble
1:30 - Hot Shot, Lead Shot + BFB, HE, Rapid Fire, Wildfire
2:00 - Hot Shot, Lead Shot + HC, Reload, Reassemble
2:30 - Hot Shot, Lead Shot
3:00 - Hot Shot, Lead Shot + BFB, HE, RS, Rapid Fire, Reload, Reassemble, Wildfire
3:30 - Hot Shot, Lead Shot
4:00 - Hot Shot, Lead Shot + HC, Reload, Reassemble
4:30 - Hot Shot, Lead Shot + BFB, HE, Rapid Fire, Wildfire
5:00 - Hot Shot, Lead Shot + Reload, Reassemble
5:30 - Hot Shot, Lead Shot
6:00 - Hot Shot, Lead Shot + BFB, HE, RS, HC, Rapid Fire, Reload, Reassemble, Wildfire

The 30 second window I feel is a very useful block of time to think around. Just like the opener where you follow the sequence of Prebuff > Hot Shot/Lead Shot refresh > Wildfire and rest of cooldowns like Reload/Reassemble etc - it's a good policy to follow that sequence of use for any midfight Wildfires you have to do as it will ensure the order of activations (and thus the order that your skills come back off cooldown) remains consistent.

If you ever find yourself activating buffs nowhere near a time where you are refreshing Hot Shot/Lead Shot - let's say you refresh those, wait 15 seconds for some reason and then start hitting BFB/HE/etc - you're going to have a bad time because you're unsyncing all your cooldowns from the above pattern.

So, let's say halfway through a fight you notice Hot Shot and Lead Shot are about to drop off, and glancing at your cooldowns tells you that you have a 1:30/4:30 type Wildfire coming up, you can spend the last couple of ogcd's before Hot Shot putting up BFB and HE, then you Quick Reload after Lead Shot and Wildfire like usual.

A lot of people get intimidated by all the cooldown juggling MCH has to do, but if you use Hot Shot/Lead Shot refresh GCDs like that as your 30 second internal timer, and as your cue to begin blowing cooldowns, you'll find it's really very simple and easy to keep track of.