Brd VS mch?

[EdwinLi]

I agree so much.

And I love commentaries like "Bard has all those sweet party bonuses, machinist isn't as party friendly."
Seems like people really don't understand how works teamworks...

The scars of 3.0 MCH is a eternal burn on the MCH reputation. They say first impressions are very important and MCH did not have a very good first impression and now still suffers for it in the community.

Some people actually still refuse to give MCH a chance due to how it was back in 3.0 despite all the changes and adjustments made.

of course then there are the issues people find with current MCH being a bit more attention required when it comes to its skills during combat.

[Idolon]

And the scars of 4.0 MCH. And 4.05 MCH. And 4.06 MCH.

Some people also loved what MCH eventually became in 3.x patches and hate what it's turned into now.

[NoctusT]

Some people also loved what MCH eventually became in 3.x patches and hate what it's turned into now.

Loved HW mch (at 3.4) hate SB mch

MCH is the "selfish" ranged job and has 2 pieces of utility unique to it: dismantle and hyper charge. Though hyper charge is also a self buff.
Bard is THE utility job with defensive buffs like nature's minne, troubadour and offensive buffs like the permanent crit buff from songs, battle voice and foes requiem.

Bard is also, IMO easier to pick up. But everyone is different.

IMO, try out both, play what you love. But, objectively speaking, bard contributes more to the raid team than mch.
But what's more important is that you're good at the job you pick. So try out both in my opinion and play the job you like more.

[kittyn]

Dismantle is like an extra reprisal every 60 seconds....kind of niche, but very useful for high-end raiding. MCH + SMN is META for ultimate prog.

[Sylvain]

Dismantle is like an extra reprisal every 60 seconds....kind of niche, but very useful for high-end raiding. MCH + SMN is META for ultimate prog.

That's what I thought, I like safe play and I think Dismantle is an amazing skill, but like virus or api, out of savage raiding these skills aren't used that much if at all. And savage raider aren't the majority of the community.

I mean, I farmed tsukuyomi recently we had a mch and 2 caster, even with the occasional wipe, none of them ever used virus/Dismantle.

Which sucks because these can mitigate a lot in late p3

[Grimoire-M]

An extra Reprisal honestly sounds a lot better than Troubadour by a long shot in practice. Minne, Foes, BV, and song crit are where BRD gets their value, and the majority of that value comes in small margins. Troubadour's long duration is its saving grace but you have to work to line it up properly with fight mechanics. Minuet Troubadour is the best use of it by far, and it shows.

MCH's problem is the heat gauge, and being too tightly balanced around lining its rotation up perfectly to align that with Wildfire. In my opinion the heat gauge needs a rework. Specifically Overheat. In trying to foolproof the class SE has actually left no room for error when it comes to managing that. I think it would be best to instead make the overheat gauge run off a certain number of shots instead of a timer, similar to how ammunition works. Here's the rough idea:
- Snapshot the overheat bonus for 5-6 shots, but keep the gauge running. Allow for more heat than 100 during this time.
- During the Overheat window, the goal is now to get the Gauge below 50 and keep it there by the time you fire the last overheated shot. Failing to do so will 'jam' your Gauss Barrel and give you the current penalty where you can't use it again. Successfully pushing the gauge below 50 during will keep the gauge at 50 once you fire off the last shot.
- Regardless of which result happens, you will be inflicted with a different debuff that automatically 'jams' your Gauss Barrel if you overheat again during its duration. Something like 20-40 seconds or so, depending on whether you want to encourage players to overheat every Reload or not.
- Play with the heat generation/reduction of Split/Slug/Clean Shot and Cooldown to make it more volatile again. Consider changing it as well during Overheat.
- I'd recommend making Cooldown only reduce heat by 10 outside of Overheat and triple it to 30 during it. That way 3 Cooldowns during Overheat covers you regardless of other factors, but with clever ammo usage you can use 2 while leaving some room for error.
- Similarly, make Split/Slug/Clean Shot increase heat by 10, but don't increase their effects during Overheat.

Or they can keep the class as is and simply reduce Cooldown's Heat reduction to 5 or 10. Honestly that would work perfectly fine without over-complicating it like I just did, but I'd like to fix the timer issue for high ping players if possible.

[Sylvain]

I like the rework idea but what about wildfire?
This is also something people complain about.
Too much is centered around that one short cd. Too many skills have 1min cf making you weaves tons of abilities once a min.

[Grimoire-M]

I like the rework idea but what about wildfire?
This is also something people complain about.
Too much is centered around that one short cd. Too many skills have 1min cf making you weaves tons of abilities once a min.

I do have a problem with that to be honest, but it's one I don't think about as much. I loved HW SMN back when that was a thing and it's all about cramming everything into a short 60s window, but I'll admit even that was far easier by comparison. In my opinion the problem with MCH is you're trying to get Overheat and Wildfire to line up perfectly on top of the already tight cooldown management, and that creates too much tension for most players. It's not the whole problem, but it's the tip of the iceberg. You're right that wildfire asks a lot of the player already. It's too much to cram into a smaller window.

HW SMN didn't have that problem because the majority of its cooldowns were (and still are) multiples of 60s and line up perfectly, with the pet skills being an exception and Aetherflow skills ultimately being gated by Aetherflow itself, and you only had one GCD you had to press the entire time. MCH has 4 short GCDs to think about constantly, 2 at 15 and 30s each (for a total of 4, with Heartbreak being conditional) and five oGCDs at 60s (three of which have to be used within the Overheat window itself, including Wildfire, two of which come after in GB and Stabilizer), with a 60s GCD in Hot Shot, and the majority of all that gets crammed into an even tighter 10s window compared to DWT's 15.

I'd say the easiest way to fix this is to increase Wildfire's duration to 12-15s and reduce its potency, but it won't solve the problem by itself. There's simply a lot of buttons you have to be pressing at any given moment. A lot more than there should be currently, but you do have an instant GCD to work with, which makes it easier.

If you want to increase all of the cooldowns, however, this is probably what you'd want to do:
- Increase Disassemble to 180s and make it buff the next three weaponskills to Direct Crits.
- Double Ricochet's and Gauss Round's cooldowns and potencies.

[LysLuc]

Thing I still dont understand is how SE thought ir was a good idea to add the Hot Shot Gauge. Why is this not just a turret gauge? It should be able to keep track of both Hypercharge and Rook Overdrive. Having this as a gauge and not a tiny buff on the turret without a timer unless you target the turret makes it easier and better to to optimize MCH without ACT or clunky macro's.

And another thing I've notcied as well is that MCH is the only job that doesnt have a gauge sound, not counting AST since it's logical on AST. Why not make the turret gauge have a sound for when the turret is back? Or when the turret runs out of Hypercharge? If you delay the selfdestruct by a few seconds as well, then you can optimize the amount of hypercharge you get with turret auto attacks.

But nah, they fill the same slot as BRD, so lets give them a gauge that is just like BRDs Straight Shot buff, because MCH totally needs a gauge for a skill they dont even really keep track off.

[Sylvain]

I think à good way to fix the ping issue from wildfire would make it affect a set amount of skill, like 5 for instance.
This would not only solve the ping issue while lowering the difficulty floor for new players.

Finally, (I actually really like your rework proposition for overheat) I think I would just make overheat also trigger rapid fire, not necessarily for the dps increase but mostly for the fun of attacking super fast when you overheat ^^

I'd also get rid of reassemble, again it's just dull you simply sync it with wildfire, there is no strategy.