Thread: Machinist 4.0 - what do you think?

My thoughts:

Are turrets gone?
Yoshi did have a disclaimer that of course - we won't be seeing everything in this skill exhibition. So for now there's no way of knowing. Turrets are a core part of the Machinist's identity in my opinion, but I wouldn't rule it out. If they remain - then it's likely that Hypercharge and Promotion will have changed somehow. If they ARE gone, then it might be that the potential damage of the turrets has been shifted into other abilities, and/or heat gauge management.

Ammunition
So now it looks like we only get a maximum of 3 ammunition instead of 5. Not only that, but they get consumed when the new skills are used. One of them a kind of swift, show-off-y spinning shot, the next the row of exploding bullets, and finally 2 turret/nodes that fire lasers. Either ammunition now functions like Aetherflow in that these new skills can only be used with ammunition - much like Fester and Pain Flare etc on SMN - or it remains the same and the new skills are actually weaponskills, though I don't think this is likely. Honestly it's going to take a lot of getting used to this change if it is an Aetherflow system, not for that reason but rather having a less dynamic 123 combo (again, assuming the new skills aren't GCD). Overall if what I assume is correct, then I don't really mind this change.

Heat gauge
This is interesting. So firstly - the Heat Gauge only appears when Gauss Barrel is on (even though it doesn't have cast times now). Then the flamethrower skill is used, and the heat gauge increases 10 points every second up to 50 (the number corresponds to the % of the gauge filled). The colour of the gauge changes from green to red as it fills. Once the flamethrower is over, the bottom half is glowing red, and stops glowing red when the quick explosive shot is used after Spread Shot.
Note: the bottom half of the gauge could indicate when this skill is available to reduce heat (by 25)? Also this could be a Weapon Skill since it's the 3rd moved used under Rapid Fire, though it doesn't confirm it.

The weaponskills used prior to this exploding shot increased the gauge by 10, so we can probably assume each weaponskill except the flamethrower increases heat by 10 points. After this however the Heat Gauge doesn't change. The explosive shot reduced heat down to 45, but the floating screen skill took it up by 5 points to 50. Either it has a minor 5 point heat increment for using it, OR what I speculate may be the case is that it automatically sets your heat to 50% and readies the explosive shot (unless it's coincidence it flashed red at the same time). The screen skill could also maintain that 50% heat for a set duration, or simply every move used afterwards doesn't increase Heat anyway (off-GCDs?).

For those of you who play League of Legends, this reminds me a lot of Rumble, where you are rewarded with extra damage / effects for balancing your heat between 50-95%; and I would also speculate that there is a penalty for maxing it out. Likely pacifying you for a few seconds, or forcing off your Gauss Barrel (since heat only appears with it on) and putting it on a CD before you can apply it again. That does of course beg the question of whether you could take Barrel off before it overheats and reapply, though there may be a penalty CD for taking it off. It's unclear if certain moves can only be used at certain heat levels.

Removal of cast times / nerfing damage / shorter wildfire?
It's impossible to say if it affects their relative damage at this stage, since there's obviously a slew of new skills to account for. Nevertheless - I do suspect their damage may have been culled along with BRD due to the power creep both had in 3.X. One of the main complaints in early HW was that MCH was too much effort for the same payoff as BRD. In the ensuing buff-a-thon of both jobs their damage in spite of their plethora of support was....very very high. I suspect MCH along with BRD have been dragged into line a bit to go back to that "less damage but invaluable support" ideology. And MCH does seem to be simplified in terms of ammunition, based on most peoples' assumptions. Of course there's also the heat gauge to contend with, but whether or not that leads to another case of effort/reward discrepancy with BRD remains to be seen. They DO still retain Wildfire, albeit at a seemingly reduced timer.

Final thoughts, I think MCH is going to be one of the most-different jobs here....I'm fine with most of the implied changes - the retention of Wildfire keeps one of my favourite things about the job, and depending on how the heat management feels I can make peace with any other simplifications. Removed cast bars doesn't bother me too much, even though MCH was the one designed with it in mind in HW, and it seems doomed to be inseparable from BRD in some ways from now on.

[tl;dr]: I like the implied changes even though it's probably going to feel very different from now on.

Originally Posted by Yorumi

I wouldn't expect it too much. Smn can't afford it, and I doubt rdm can either. That just leaves blm. It's strange to me that they shifted all this support onto casters who havn't been doing it. Everyone is all the sudden looking at casters as mp batteries now but you have to remember you're asking them to give up their one resource for doing damage.

Well, I can tell you you,re wrong for the rdm part, the manashift skill is a caster role skill, which means that BLM,SMN and RDM can do it.
Unless you mean they can't afford it because they need the mana for dps. In this case BLM can definitely afford it. SMN would need to be less agressive with their mana, yes the manashift would cost them 1-2 Mega Ruin.


And to support my previous claim, I do not think it is strange. They allowed caster to do some support if needed. Don't forget that these spells aren't Baseline. You need to pick those at the expense of Something else. If your healer don't need mana, there is probably more interesting choice than manashift.

Originally Posted by Yorumi

but you have to remember you're asking them to give up their one resource for doing damage.

I do remember it, which is why I said "if you don't have a bard/mch and your healer need the mana"
It's an option, it's not meant to be baseline. Like BRD/MCH mana battery aren't mandatory on every fight.
My guess was to just give group more choice if they miss Something.

Let say you pug the new primal, there is no BRD/MCH, (let say you play a caster), you can be like "mmm I'll take mana shift in case". Some people died, healer had to rez and now they're dangerously low on mana. You shift some of yours. You probably avoided a wipe. There is nothing far fetched in this scenario. People dying happens all the time, healer dying and being rezzed wih an empty blue bar is quite common. This skill will allow group to be less punished if they have no BRD/MCH.
It is also very unlikely to end up in a group with 4 melee dps.

And I agree people freak out way too much on this.
Even in my fc a BLM wants to reroll because he doesn't want to deal with that. I mean... he doesn't want to "maybe" have to give 20% of his mana (which replenish at a crazy rate) once or twice a fight. Not considering all the potential "stand still while the boss does his 15sec animation Attack" which wouldn't affect his dps at all.
If you don't want to use it just don't.

Not everyone value the same things. I tend to value safety over raw power.
I consider that if we wipe because we lack dps, it is not because I didn't pull those 3-4 Mega Ruins during the fight. The dps gained from those spell over the course of a fight is very trivial. The overall raid dps has much more impact. If someone die because one healer was oom, I consider that sacrificing those 2 Mega ruins to give back mana is well Worth it. If you do not care about your raid status and only car eabout your dps, just don't take it. Your raid shouldn't need it anyway. If everyone plays right, avoid everything, do top notch dps, your healer shouldn't need more mana.
Unless they drastically change Healing, I can't recall a single case where I always missed mana on a fight. I only missed mana when people just kept playing like shit.

There will be no cast time. Our GB now can heat up which means we have to keep an eye to it. I don't think it will change our play style drastically but maybe around 30% with new abilities and skills. Rotation will change for sure but I think we'll still be a bursty job with bursty rotation and managing our CDs for wildfire.

Also noticed that we only have 3 ammos instead of 5 unless these are different type of ammos.
The ammos were used on different animation (Those are not our regular 1-2-3). But the animation to get the ammos is the same as reload.

Since we are using more fire now, we'll be dealing some magic damage instead of physical.

Also if you notice GB, the pointer can go back using some abilities instead of forward (cool it down).

One thing that worries me is that we might get some animation-lock abilities/skills.