To FFXIV Team From a Concerned Machinist

[Bonbori]

Since Yoshi mentioned that they're aware of MCH problems and will look into them in 5.0, I've been speculating what they could have in mind and there's one idea I've been tinkering with for the last couple of days that I feel could do a lot to both help with clunkiness issues and make MCH rotation less vulnerable to disruption while preserving the heat mechanics (in a more user-friendly way of course), possibly allowing MCH to avoid a full rework.

This assumes a speculative environment where all jobs are getting changed to a lesser or greater extent beyond my ability to predict, so the idea intentionally disregards any meta considerations and focuses solely on MCH's individual QoL and flow of combat.

• Wildfire is split up into two components: passive damage accumulation (trait) and active detonation (single-target ability) and now is tied directly to Heat.
• By default, the new Wildfire button is inactive and only becomes usable when the Heat gauge goes into Overheat and during the Afterglow phase (the brief period after Overheat ends during which the heat gauge is locked and Gauss Barrel cannot be reapplied, I don't believe it has an official name so I'm calling it Afterglow because Cooldown is already taken).
• While MCH is in Overheat, x% of all damage dealt by the MCH is compiled (and I would love a UI element that displays the accumulated potency)
• At any point, Wildfire can be activated to deal the damage compiled so far to the target. MCH doesn't need to wait the full duration of Overheat.
• Once Overheat ends, damage stops accumulating but Wildfire detonation remains useable for the duration of Afterglow
• Damage accumulation has no cooldown (although obviously it resets if not detonated in time), but the active Wildfire detonation probably still should to preserve MCH's cooldown synchronicity and keep burst windows predictable

In addition, of course, to rearranging levelling progression so that elements of the heat gauge get unlocked in a more logical order, with Cooldown unlocked at the same time as Gauss Barrel so that we don't get a gauge that's sorta just there and we don't get to control for a large chunk of the levelling experience and majority of pre-SB instanced content. Also, since Wildfire now requires the Heat gauge, it must be unlocked later in progression (ideally somewhere in the 51-60 range), which hopefully would mean that Heat is unlocked earlier, ideally somewhere in the 1-50 range.

• Intended results: By separating the damage accumulation window and detonation burst, MCH has greater control over when Wildfire detonates, and because it is no longer committed to a specific target ahead of time, it gives the MCH more flexibility during phase transitions/boss invincibility frames and add phases.
• Side effects: By moving Gauss Barrel earlier in level progression, a learning MCH can get used to Overheat windows before Wildfire, and when Wildfire is unlocked later and expands the functionality of the Overheat state, it becomes easier to put 2 and 2 together, making the job more intuitive and smoothing out the learning curve. Additionally, if the compiled potency accumulated by Wildfire during Overheat was visible somewhere in the UI, it would provide real-time feedback on one's performance, facilitating self-improvement without resorting to parsing.
• Additional provisions: Because Heat becomes more relevant at earlier levels, it would need to become more reliable without relying on the end-game Flamethrower ability, Heat generation must be as predictable as possible. Cooldown needs to be available earlier, preferably unlocked at the same level as Gauss Barrel, and there must be no RNG or inconsistency involved in Heat generation or reduction. The game should make it clear what abilities interact with Heat and under what circumstances.

[Spiriel_Basanda]

I just don't want to be the bottom of the barrel again at the start for the 3rd expansion in a row since the job was made. It was so bad at the start of SB, I remember getting into a Susano EX fight through the duty finder. We cleared it without problems and his mount dropped. I already had the dog so I passed it, but one of the other seven people made it clear they didn't like me being there as MCH by saying "MCHs don't get doggos" or something along those lines before bravely leaving the group before I could respond. That was uncalled for, especially in a run so clean.

I don't agree with the earlier sentiment of removing Wildfire though. That's my favorite part of the job, seeing how high I can punch up that number every time I do it. I won't say Wildfire is without flaws, cause the boss going immune during it does indeed suck, but it is why I like the job.

[Elnidfse]

I just don't want to be the bottom of the barrel again at the start for the 3rd expansion in a row since the job was made. It was so bad at the start of SB, I remember getting into a Susano EX fight through the duty finder. We cleared it without problems and his mount dropped. I already had the dog so I passed it, but one of the other seven people made it clear they didn't like me being there as MCH by saying "MCHs don't get doggos" or something along those lines before bravely leaving the group before I could respond. That was uncalled for, especially in a run so clean.

I don't agree with the earlier sentiment of removing Wildfire though. That's my favorite part of the job, seeing how high I can punch up that number every time I do it. I won't say Wildfire is without flaws, cause the boss going immune during it does indeed suck, but it is why I like the job.

Wildfire of before was fine as it was less constricting as a noose. But constant wildfires on 1 minute rotations mean that missing a single cooldown has very real repercussions on both raid sync and wildfires down the line. (disregarding raids, it just feels terrible and somehow they made it far more punishing for any amount of ping) I like wildfire too. But It can't carry on like this with this joke of what we have now. Before the entire rotation was proc based sure but we were weaving constantly. Now we're just waiting on cooldowns and using none of the cooler abilities like RF or Ricc or even FT unless we're going to wildfire. Which again would be fine. Gone are the days of wild/mild and post jump flat out holds for the sake of sync. In are the days of 1-2-3 (featuring cooldown and gauss round) wildfiresetup. Went from playing on a Yamaha piano to slamming our face on a fisher price toy. The new MCH they've envisioned has none of the fun, none of the action, and none of the performance.

And the raid tier is already over. No matter what they do. The damage has been done. We've been like this for the entire raid tier. For an entire year and half a year more to come. Of course the time for venting frustrations is way way over. I hope they give me a reason to sub in the next expansion moving forward.

[Sylve]

I would honestly rather Wildfire be deleted entirely.
As it stands, Machinists have no core identity. Monks have their speed, it defines their kit. Dragoons have Blood of the Dragon. Summoners with Demi-Bahamut (love it or hate it). Bards and Songs. Red Mages with Dualcast.
All of those are Job defining. they are what they are because they do those things.
As a Machinist, what defining feature do we have? A one minute cooldown that requires the use of every single ability we possess in a 10 second window to do mediocre damage?


I think they should double down on the Heat mechanic.
Change Overheat into a 'stance' similar to Darkside, boosting damage at the cost of passively generating Heat while in combat.
Shots become Heated Shots when Heat is above 0.
Every 10 points of heat increases the potency of Heated Weaponskills by 10. Maxing out heat causes an emergency shutdown, losing Gauss Barrel for some time. (similar in punishment do a DRG failing to manage BotD)
Cooldown functionality remains unchanged, heat management and single target damage.
Flamethrower changed to be an AoE version of Cooldown. Draining 10 Heat per second to deal AoE damage. No recast, on the GCD. Damage tied to heat level. Starting high and getting weaker as you run out of Heat. Used in tandem with Spread Shot.
Wildfire changed to a self buff with no duration, capturing X potency of every weaponskill used, shown on the job gauge as a number. Press Wildfire again to launch the shot and start the cooldown.
Leave Turrets as they are, but give us a Glamor option for them. Theyre incredibly hard to see most of the time.
1-2-3 Shot mechanics would be unchanged along with Reload mechanics.

Machinist identity would then be Heat Management and a dps style that rises and falls based on heat management and Reload usage. Better MCH players would be able to keep Heat at high levels without triggering a shutdown.

Also, if the concern is that a Machinist would compete with Casters if buffed, change Role Actions like Palisade and Refresh to apply a debuff to affected targets preventing them from receiving those effects again for 2~ minutes.
Stacking the two together just costs you Caster Role buffs instead of doubling the BRD/MCH ones.

[Elnidfse]

As a Machinist, what defining feature do we have? A one minute cooldown that requires the use of every single ability we possess in a 10 second window to do mediocre damage?

Well. Yes. Wildfire is and will always be MCH core identity. Problems with ping, clipping, sks, jumping, switching, and it's implementation in SB aside, it's a fun ability that used to have long term fight dynamics.
This post is about to get extremely wordy so bare with me.

Wildfire

They attempted to combat our between wildfire downtime by "speeding" up our wildfires. The intent was to make it easier to sync with raid buffs. We know now in practice that isn't what happened and our rapidfire double weaves are extremely terrible. There are other things. Reducing wildfire cooldown was a thing as aforementioned and that's fine and all but while they reduced the cooldown of our reload they didn't shorten the speed of our other cooldowns so things like Ricochet and Rapidfire is ONLY used during wildfire. We have 4 abilities that are only ever used in conjunction with WF. Rapidfire (which was always the case), Ricochet, Reassemble, and Flamethrower. If you count overheating as a CD and you should, because it's taking the place of our Hawks Eye, Blood for Blood, and Raging Strikes (albeit in a much better state) then that's 5 concepts tied to one action that we'll only ever use for that one action. And that's it. Conceptually while you are loading proccing, with the nerf to heat in 4.05/4.06 there is a lot more there's even LESS that we do in between wildfires than we had before.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Monks have their speed, it defines their kit.

I know this isn't even the main point of your post, but I couldn't help but mention it. Monk isn't even about speed anymore. Ninja and SAM is as fast, if not faster, than us and our main damaging CD slows us down to base CD speeds.

The most unique thing Monk has going for it is that it's the only job that is still so heavily littered with positionals.

[HyperiusUltima]

In regards to what was said above, that actually would make a lot more sense than the almalgamation of oGCDs that MCH is right now. As for your Wildfire...You’d have to put a Damage limit on it to balance it properly. If anything, we don’t need an infinitely stacking damage bomb. Instead, make Wildfire an instant oGCD that is a giant heat dump with variable potency depending on how much heat you generate. It’ll reset your Heat to 0, but gives MCH a reason to use Barrel Stabilizer so they can keep DPS.

[Elnidfse]

Disclaimer
A reality of wildfire is that it's only ever going to feel good WHEN we use all of our attacks with it and get to see our big number. All abilities forever are probably going to have to play into Wildfire as a result of this. While I can agree and acknowledge that this may limit what they can even DO with MCH I do feel it's healthy and should remain forever. Wildfire itself in HW felt like a minigame that only you got to engage in a bunch of times through a fight and figuring a good wildfire rotation was like solving a puzzle. The only thing I ever wanted was the ability to blow it up early, because losing the entire wildfire has never felt good.

The reason I've always advocated the wild/mild dynamic is because we get to use almost our entire kit hooked beyond wildfire and it played into our juggling act with OGCD timers while creating an active and adaptive playstyle. They could also have done this by letting us keep our 15 second wildfire to ease the burden on weaving (and letting rapidfire adapt a rotation that only requires a single weave). They could have reduced the cooldown of ALL of our abilities so that we could use them more often. They could have left WF at 90 seconds (because let's be honest it's not as if they're shying away from extended rotations what with DRG and SMN existing) and let us continue to have our OGCDs. They could have did the same and reduced our cooldowns to neat 15 and 30 second increments so that the supposed problem of "not knowing what to use and when" didn't exist. There's a ton of potential "solutions" (because I don't know the real balancing act that went with making ANY of our job decisions) that let us keep our wildfire while not making it hog 4.5 of our abilities exclusively to itself.

Side topic
Lockout
This is terrible. We're allowed to do damage for 10 seconds where upon then we don't even get to play SB or HW MCH for 10 seconds until we can attach our Gauss Barrel (HW) and engage in heat (SB). It's like being pacified after Berserk but having no means of cleansing the pacify. When the job wasn't about overheating every single WF this was fine. Now it's not. Especially the 3-5 abilities you're going to have to weave or double weave (one being Gauss Barrel on and Barrel Stabilizer) as a minimum. Again. If the goal was that lockout was a punishment for not doing well or a side effect for pushing damage before a jump like a tornado kick, that'd be cool. It's not though. So it's not. At least in my opinion. I mean come on. What happened to the Pacify from berserk again? Oh yeah.

[Elnidfse]

On the topic of:
Heat
Pre 4.05/4.06 was frustrating. I get that. Nothing was as heart searingly unfortunate as locking yourself out of an entire raids buffs because you split when you should have Cooldowned. But some people, myself included, just wanted a higher payoff. Frankly I would be happy to give away ALL of my rDPS if it meant we got SAM/BLM levels of pDPS. I've already heard to death that the reason we can't have great rDPS or compete directly with BRD is so that double rDPS doesn't become a meta again. Alright then. Scrap the support entirely. What's the point. Of course I can understand that being a point of contention losing support but something that gets punished hardcore for a single passive slipup is a bit much without the associated reward. And I don't think the solution to that problem should have been making heat irrelevant.

On that same note. I don't think Heat should just be a spender. We have 2 jobs right now whose main mechanic is nothing but a spender. Heat was something different and WAS far more engaging to deal with even though it was extremely frustrating to mess up

With all of that out of the way I thought I'd talk about things that I DO want to see:
Wishlist

• Abilities we use outside of and with wildfire instead of only with wildfire.
• More engaging turret gameplay. (With the loss of promote, our turret interaction has shrunk to using two abilities that we'll almost only ever use on cooldown)
• More tools, more weapons, more gadgets. With the loss of grenado shot our lunchbox has turned into a glorified ammo and turret box.
• More single OGCD weaves.

Of course. Given that MCH is pretty much just 90% gun by design, while I know some ideas just aren't happening ever, I do still want to toss out things that I wish it could have. We'll call it:

Never Ever "Wishlist"

• I want our job quests have us actually learning something or building something of our own.
• Let our turret contribute to our WF.
• Gimmie a construct/magitech armor of our own
• Different attachments for gun since Gauss Barrel is never going to have a unique appearance.
• Different types of ammo or shots
• Different abilities that depend on turret positioning + the ability to move the turret. Or
• Removal of the turret and integration of it's skills.

But hey. No matter what. At least it's comforting knowing that MCH is going to get shaken up again next expansion.