About Machinist...

[Ceallach]

I'm already planning on adding dragoon and paladin to my repertoire, but I noticed no one in my free company plays machinist. How would you convince me that the job is worth my time?

For those who don't know, I'm a Disciple of Magic main (red mage and summoner in particular).

[Idolon]

I am not so sure that I could. It used to have short casts which could be bypassed by reacting to the random procs of its combo, or forcing them with ammo, granting extra mobility. It then had a system of a 30s, 60s, 90s, 120s, and 180s skills that came in and out of alignment, giving you a variety of different bursts of damage over a fight.

In Stormblood, casts were removed, simplifying proc usage as it was no longer used for mobility. The burst rotation was also streamlined by changing everything to 60s, meaning you repeat the same thing more often. In their place, they added heat, which required just as much attention as what they removed. Then they promptly turned heat into effectively one more 60s buff because people complained it was either too difficult or not rewarding enough.

The leveling experience is frankly awful, as the job doesn't feel complete until level 66. The level 70 skill, Flamethrower, is also a clunky and somewhat counterintuitive. If you stick with it to 70, you'll get a job with a very strict and static rotation that is very active and requires very strict timing for periodic bursts, but then can basically ignore it's core mechanic for 40-50 seconds until it's time to do another one. Whether you find that appealing or not is up to you.

[Zojha]

I wouldn't try to convince you at all.

It isn't worth "your time", it is worth 10 seconds every 60 seconds - Wildfire. After pushing intentional overheat, reducing heat gains and putting hot shot on the Wildfire timer, there's nothing else left to the job but Wildfire. Wildfire is MCH and MCH is Wildfire. If that is something you like, go for it. If not, I'd suggest a different job, because SE has just doubled down on that design and it's not likely to change soon.

[Eir_Z]

We should probably add that MCH is one of the jobs that requires a ping <100ms to play consistently due to the way Overheat works. I main MCH and love it, but it can bounce between very boring and very frustrating depending on the fight.

...and that hideous lunchbox...