Why is Machinist DPS SOOOO BAD?

[Eir_Z]

Mmmm....

I'd go for flat potency increases over increasing buffs. As it stands, slug shot's potency is 25% higher than split shot, and clean shot is 20% higher than slug shot. To maintain that with nice, round numbers hSplit should be 200 pot, hSlug 250, and hClean 300. It sounds high, but those are the proc'd pots since non-proc slug and clean are only 100 pot even when heated. And, without ammo the proc rate can be frustratingly low.

Using Cooldown to speed recovery is a really good idea. It'd drop the recovery to roughly two uses of Cooldown. In addition to that, it'd be interesting to change Hot Shot to raise heat by 25 instead of 10. It works wonderfully in PVP since heating your barrel only takes the two shots. It would also make heat management a bit more punishing since you're more likely to overheat if you mess up, but it wouldn't be as much of an issue since the downtime isn't as punishing.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Most jobs build their gauge to spend it, as opposed to MCH constantly juggling its gauge levels. Why not allow for a high potency spender? An alternative to the Wildfire dance, perhaps a beam ability usable once overheated. You can either use your Overheated status to fire the beam (immediately triggering the cooldown phase), or utilize the 10% damage increase (should be higher to make it more worthwhile). The benefit of this is Overheating still has a use in an area where perhaps a target or opportune moment won't last long enough to utilize Wildfire.

[Heimdalgc]

Yea MCH is just a bit janky or weak