MCH biggest issue?

[KageTokage]

They should extend Overheat's duration to 12 seconds to ensure you can get six GCDs off.

I also wish Flamethrower did decent damage like it does in PvP, enough that you'd actually want it to run its full duration whenever possible. To facilitate this, they could make Overheat's timer not actually start ticking down until Flamethrower has finished.

[AlvinOwl]

MCH just need a complete rework!

[Azerhan]

MCH just need a complete rework!

No, clearly not. Just some QoL improvements.

[LysLuc]

No, clearly not. Just some QoL improvements.

I think that a rework wouldnt be that bad of an idea because right now, SE has no clue what they want with MCH, which is just sad...

Just to list a few examples.
How long did it take SE to inform MCHs that they needed to overheat? If I remember right it took them 2 months to fix the issue of overheating not being all that much of a benefit, in most cases even being a loss.

The start of 4.05, when they introduced Omega Savage, the BRD dummy had more HP then the MCH dummy. Which also shows that SE expected MCH to do less dps then a BRD. This has been changed after 4.06.

In 4.1 we got the unneeded +1% hypercharge buff, 4.2 they decided to remove the previous buff and give us potency increases.

Just looking at all this shows that SE has no clue what they want to do with the job. If SE wasnt as oblivious to the QoL things that are needed on MCH, then yes, a rework wouldnt be needed. But it's clearly visible that they dont have a set plan for the job. I feel like the +1% hypercharge buff is supposed to have the same effect as the Balance buff on AST had, draw more people to the job. Which it clearly did.

Another great example of them being oblivious is Yoshi-p's comment about MCH being fine when he was on the JP servers.
Yes, damage wise the job is fine, maybe to strong even. But gameplay wise it needs a lot of adjusting. Like when you're leveling the job and unlock your gauge at level 52 but a way to manage it at level 62 and a reason to manage it at level 64. Why is this not all done at level 52, 54 and 56 or at level 62, 64, 66? Would make leveling the job a lot easier and make it not as big of a pain to play in level 60 content.

[Zojha]

I think that a rework wouldnt be that bad of an idea because right now, SE has no clue what they want with MCH, which is just sad...

They have a very clear clue what they want with MCH: Wildfire.

They just don't know what else to do with it. Even the new, shiny gauge is just another extra clunky CD to add to it and when you read through the thread, most gripes seem to stem from issues with optimizing the one trick of the pony one way or another.

The rest is just tuning. They're getting close to where they want it, so changes are gonna be small from now on.

Personally, I find that too one-dimensional. I quite enjoyed it when Overheat was an ambiguous gain at best and had hoped they'd reinforce the notion of Overheat being something you don't want to do in order to capitalize on Heat management mechanics in future expansions. Turns out they went the other way and aligned all cooldowns and even Hot Shot to Wildfire to drive the point home.
Well... if that's what MCH players want, they can have it. I'm playing something else >_> But since you (as in: The OP) asked what keeps people from playing the job, well... there! My 2 cents. I still find MCH quite enjoyable when I "don't" bother with Overheating, but there's the lingering feeling of guilt when I do because it's quite obviously less than ideal, so I'm not burdening groups with it very often.

[AlvinOwl]

The rest is just tuning. They're getting close to where they want it, so changes are gonna be small from now on.

Changes should be made in a better way and not worse as they announced in the last live letter.

[Johaandr]

I hate flamethrower. People like it cuse they are "forced" to use it for opener. I also hate the timer of wildfire. 10 sec to just juggle everything is annoying xd bring it back to 16 sec or increase it it to 12 sec so i feel there is 10 sec.

[AlvinOwl]

20 sec its the ideal one. XD
I think 15 will be ok!

[HaroldSaxon]

even though it's DPM was known for being abysmal in many updates...

Perhaps this is just a me issue?

Yes, its a just you issue. MCH has been very competitive performance wise for a long time.

[Kacho_Nacho]

Obviously, the biggest problem for machinists right now is that our firearms are too small. I want to pull something like this out of my holster.