MCH changes are unfortunate

[FaileExperiment]

As a MCH main, i won't say "no" to these changes. It's some small QoL changes. But from testing, they barely make any DPS increase. Is SE seriously saying this DPS is where they want MCH to be?

SE, if all we're doing is QoL changes for MCH, I have two more:
1) When Gauss Barrel overheats, just disable the function. Don't unequip it. Function should automatically return with the barrel cools down
2) When we overload Rook and Bishop, don't despawn the turrets. Leave them as is an just disable their function. You can add a little "malfunction" animation, with a bit of smoke, so let us know visually it's out of commission. But don't make us have to summon and re-position the turret again. When the turret is repaired, just let it automatically resume function.

[Jimsvaliant]

And as a result, BLM, SMN, and now seemingly even MCH is now dead in the water.

Uhh BLM was far from dead in the water and with the recent changes they're pretty well off.

[FaileExperiment]

Uhh BLM was far from dead in the water and with the recent changes they're pretty well off.

My partner mains BLM, and she's pretty excited to try out the changes. She was considering dropping BLM for the SAM she just got to 70, but the recent changes have made the decision harder.

[Greedalox]

I'm honestly having a hard time telling if the bad taste in my mouth from the changes are from the actual changes- or that we're forced to unlearn all of our ingrained heat management tendencies for a minimal damage buff overall.

It just feels like it's an attempt to get new people to play MCH with the "easier" heat management, when in reality it seems like the people who play MCH have always been playing MCH because they enjoy the archetype over Bows. So it's essentially uprooting what little playerbase MCH has, forcing them to relearn a lot of ingrained stuff and there's no payoff for SE or us because I doubt too many new players will look at these changes and go "Oh wow, I better hop on this bandwagon quick!" while the MCH players get a teensy DPS increase.

[CosmicKirby]

I'm honestly having a hard time telling if the bad taste in my mouth from the changes are from the actual changes- or that we're forced to unlearn all of our ingrained heat management tendencies for a minimal damage buff overall.

It just feels like it's an attempt to get new people to play MCH with the "easier" heat management, when in reality it seems like the people who play MCH have always been playing MCH because they enjoy the archetype over Bows. So it's essentially uprooting what little playerbase MCH has, forcing them to relearn a lot of ingrained stuff and there's no payoff for SE or us because I doubt too many new players will look at these changes and go "Oh wow, I better hop on this bandwagon quick!" while the MCH players get a teensy DPS increase.

With the community reaching the (correct) consensus that there's no reason to take a MCH over a BRD now. I heavily doubt many new players will play MCH at all.


It starts at level 30 basically having people go back to level it, requires the MSQ to unlock, and is considered inferior to the other option for that slot.

[Greedalox]

With the community reaching the (correct) consensus that there's no reason to take a MCH over a BRD now. I heavily doubt many new players will play MCH at all.

True true! But even when MCH was top dog it's playerbase could never touch the likes of RDM or SAM. A lot of people don't like gun classes in their swords/magic/bows fantasy games and that's just a natural truth to it. There's just no reason to harm the existing MCH player base to cull new MCH's because anybody who was going to be a MCH was probably gonna end up there anyways. They probably lost a few seasoned MCH with this, funnily enough.

[NoblePigeon]

True true! But even when MCH was top dog it's playerbase could never touch the likes of RDM or SAM. A lot of people don't like gun classes in their swords/magic/bows fantasy games and that's just a natural truth to it.

That logic never made sense to me. Final Fantasy has always had distinctly non "fantasy" elements to it, and FFXIV is no different. Not withstanding the Allagan stuff who had starships, computers and genetic engineering, you also have the Garleans, who possesses technology that, at its greatest, is somewhere in the early 1900's. (No spoilers, but this is most evident in Stormblood, especially with a certain scorpion boss...)

I couldn't tell you why MCH is the least played class, but I'm not sure that reason is a big one.

[Jijifli]

I couldn't tell you why MCH is the least played class, but I'm not sure that reason is a big one.

Just a quick guess here, I assume MCH's play rate is lower due to the class's difficulty to play efficiently. When you compare MCH to BRD, MCH looks more difficult, and the average player would rather lean to the easier job if they still enjoy it. For some players, having too much to keep track of can be a push away, or at least, that's why I never played it.

[Gun-Cat]

True true! But even when MCH was top dog it's playerbase could never touch the likes of RDM or SAM. A lot of people don't like gun classes in their swords/magic/bows fantasy games and that's just a natural truth to it. There's just no reason to harm the existing MCH player base to cull new MCH's because anybody who was going to be a MCH was probably gonna end up there anyways. They probably lost a few seasoned MCH with this, funnily enough.

I enjoy the Machinist archetype and think Aether powered guns are cool. But the problem is that SE does nothing with the archetype at all. First, "Ranged Physical DPS" is such a confused category. While never stated ingame, the playerbase expectations are that these jobs bring support with them. Somehow, the managed to fill this for BRD well while MCH feels lacking. Second, our machines do very little gameplay wise. You place the turret. No interaction at all with it, no special skills linked to it other than blowing it up. Heat is a fine mechanic and could lend itsself to a lot of fun and flavourful skills. But it didn't and we are back to optimizing WF as be all end all of our gameplay. The only gadget we got was the Flamethrower and that is... yeah...

[CosmicKirby]

I enjoy the Machinist archetype and think Aether powered guns are cool. But the problem is that SE does nothing with the archetype at all. First, "Ranged Physical DPS" is such a confused category. While never stated ingame, the playerbase expectations are that these jobs bring support with them. Somehow, the managed to fill this for BRD well while MCH feels lacking. Second, our machines do very little gameplay wise. You place the turret. No interaction at all with it, no special skills linked to it other than blowing it up. Heat is a fine mechanic and could lend itsself to a lot of fun and flavourful skills. But it didn't and we are back to optimizing WF as be all end all of our gameplay. The only gadget we got was the Flamethrower and that is... yeah...

- The turret and it's abilities don't scale with some stats and barely scale with others.
- Are fire and forget with virtually no interactivity, promote was removed making this even more apparent.
- Takes up a good chunk of our DPS ability, meaning the rest of our potencies are gimped to compensation, so we can't get the high individual numbers that are a huge draw for being a DPS in the first place.
- The turret doesn't contribute to wildfire damage, nor does Overdrive. Overdrive is a really weird player ability that commands our pet to do an attack, and as such any buffs on the player don't work for this ability, at all. (Is this the same with SMN?)
- The turret is in a weird position of sometimes being effected by AoEs/Mechanics/Status effects, and sometimes not. Yet is also easily replaced, it's a wonder why it can be hit at all.

The turret is horrible, it's not fun or interesting, it's almost better at this point to remove it considering square doesn't seem to want to do anything with it. 1 Expansion later, and they REMOVED and GAVE the turret an ability, it's basically the same thing it was before, no changes. Boring.