Advice to a friend who's trying to wrap their head around machinist

[Stormfur]

So I have introduced a friend to this game \o/

And he wants to play as a machinist.

The problem is that I've never really done machinist so apart from telling him that it's based entirely on procs (and what a proc is, for that matter), I'm not able to give much in the way of advice.

All the guides and flowcharts and stuff I've found are outdated. Does anyone who plays MCH regularly have any go-to resources -- even just machinist basics would be great!

[ULoki]

Technically, the basic gameplay of MCH to maximize damage is to pumped all your OGCD abilities in the 10 seconds you put out wildfire. This can only be done every 60 seconds. After you done your burst damage, you will need to get your heat gauge within 50 - 95 until Wildfire and your other OGCD abilities are good to use again. The reason why you want your heat to be at 50 - 95 is because it increases the potency of your combo and you just look amazing (The best attack animation in the game. FACT!)

[Kitfox]

Join The Balance Discord for all your theorycrafting needs and resources for any class. Currently we don't have any full length guides on MCH but the up-to-date rotations can be found here: MCH rotations.

If your friend is just starting out, just make sure he reads up on the skill tooltips and let them feel around the class. It's a long way to 70 and there's no need to overwhelm them with massive guides. When they're ready to step up into the endgame, introduce him to the class discussions on The Balance.

[Rongway]

even just machinist basics would be great!

The best one-off general purpose tip I can offer is in regard to the the main attack sequence. Most people will pick up the job and expect that Split Shot - Slug Shot - Clean Shot is a 123.

It's usually better to think of it as a 121 323. For the basic level of MCHistry, this will at least make better use of ammo than a 123 because of ammo's proc forcing effect.

Looks something like this:

Reload (3 ammo remaining)
Split Shot [+25 potency, +50* on next Slug Shot] (2 ammo remaining)
Slug Shot [+25 potency, +70 on next Clean Shot] (1 ammo remaining)
Split Shot [+25 potency, +50 on next Slug Shot] (0 ammo)
Clean Shot
Quick Reload (1 ammo remaining)
Slug Shot [+25 potency, +70 on next Clean Shot] (0 ammo)
Clean Shot

total ammo bonus: 340

*Proc bonuses halved because there's a 50% chance they would have happened even without ammo.

[Kitfox]

snip

Your math is a bit off. Ammo proc is worth ~20 potency on average (ammo increases chance of 40 potency gain by 50%), making ammo + proc 45 potency. That would make Reload a 135 potency gain, but you have to take into account that you only have a 4/7 chance of not having any procs up before Reload (your average combo distribution is 4 split : 2 slug : 1 clean), so you only get the proc bonus ~57% of the time on one of the ammos, this makes the average potency on one of the procs ~11 potency instead of 20, making Reload an average gain of ~124 potency.

Similarly, Quick Reload is worth the full 45 potency per use because there are no normal situations where you would have both procs loaded and lose the ammo proc.

[Pence]

The problem is that I've never really done machinist so apart from telling him that it's based entirely on procs (and what a proc is, for that matter),

I'd not tell him this for a start. Very little of MCH is about procs anymore, BRD is far far far more reliant on procs.

Also: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...RkOqjCNw/edit#