MCH has truly come far since the launch of Stormblood

[Kitfox]

The job has gone through so many changes thanks to in-depth feedback from the active player base and receptive developers. It's truly a marvel to look back at the memes from the launch days of Stormblood and revel in the glory of all the progress we've made since. It's understandable that not all feedback has been acted upon in 15 months. It's important to wait and see how the player base responds to the changes after all.

So we made sure to let them know how we felt about the class 8 months later.

Here we are 7 months later again, reminiscing our journey together. I can't even imagine the things we can achieve by 5.0 if we just work together, like we have so far!

Truly, our voices have been heard and no community could hope for more!

Video from July 21, 2017: https://youtu.be/1pdCbOxyZrY

Yoshi-P came to us before SB and said: "Guys we have to make MCH in SB more popular and less complicated. It's currently the least played job in the game."

So we decided to change some skill animations and make them look flashy. We thought it was going to be hard since we didn't have much time. So we removed half of the skills and made some into role actions.

It was easy. So damn easy!

We also kept the RNG so the job still feels unique to play. Easy peasy! And everyone loves RNG, right? And we thought 5 ammo was just too complicated to manage so we changed it to 3! Now the rotation will be random 1-2-3 and Wildfire every minute and repeat, so much easier, right?

No more dozens of ogcds to worry about!

They can also Overheat for more damage. Except it's a dps loss in almost every scenario! We thought 20% was too much so we nerfed it last minute.

Easy!

If you die with BS on cooldown, good luck getting back to 50 heat. Have fun wasting 5 gcds to heat up with Flamethrower for another dps loss. Even spamming Hot Shot to 50 heat is a dps gain.

No, but seriously, it wasn't enough, the job was still difficult to play. So we decided to buff the job so it could compete with BRD. So we just buffed Hot Shot to 8% and the Turret Overdrive. Should be enough.

We thought heat was too difficult to manage so we cut it in half. So easy!

And now... now you... can consider Cooldown as an ogcd since you'll be using it every Christmas!

We buffed Barrel Stabilizer to sync up with every Wildfire but made it harder to Overheat, clever design right? Now they can't complain.

"So it got easier to play?"

Probably.

We thought maybe buffing the heated shots was maybe too much, they would probably out dps BRDs by a ton.

I don't understand how MCHs are getting discriminated.

"So the job is still very unpopular?"

I guess people prefer to play BRDs since they have songs and a flute. I don't think it's a skill set issue. They can both shoot while they run, right? Makes no sense why they are getting locked out of PFs and statics.

At least they have cool guns. It's a fantasy world so guns can do less damage than bows.

It's a unique job since you'll be one of the few playing it.

[oph]

To think that my video would still be relevant one and half year later, your post really puts in perspective how MCH was shafted the hardest this expansion and all data regarding patch balance, raid and overall popularity are a testament to this negligence. One can only hope 5.0 will be MCH's revival.

[Matthew_Fox]

Your video is legendary, just like the legends of SE fixing Machinist

[Sunspawn]

Your video is legendary, just like the legends of SE fixing Machinist

But the video actually exists.

[whiskeybravo]

I mean, I didn't get around to leveling up MCH until after Deltascape raids, but there were significant adjustments in 4.05 which, if anything, are a huge sign of how bad they screwed it up to begin with


8/10/17 Live Letter

0:30:28
Q: I’m a machinist main, but I am concerned because despite the difficulty of the rotation and managing the Heat Gauge, my DPS is not very high. Machinist itself is enjoyable, but in comparison to Bard, it feels lacking in support abilities as well as DPS. Please let us know if there are any adjustments planned.

A: Perspectives vary from player to player regarding what they would like to see done for machinist.

Machinists are better suited for certain content compared to others, and due to the current difficulty of Heat management and how it is affected by fights, as well as the visible difference between Machinist and Bard in content, we have made it easier to manage the Heat Gauge. In addition, we will be raising their overall base damage.

4.05 Changes:

Quick Reload - Quick Reload no longer reduces the Heat Gauge.
Hot Shot - Increased physical damage effect changed from 5% to 8%. Increase to Heat Gauge reduced from 10 to 5.
Spread Shot - Increase to Heat Gauge reduced from 10 to 5.
Barrel Stabilizer - Recast time reduced from 120 to 60 seconds.
Heated Split Shot - Increase to Heat Gauge reduced from 10 to 5.
Heated Slug Shot - Increase to Heat Gauge reduced from 10 to 5.
Heated Clean Shot - Increase to Heat Gauge reduced from 10 to 5.
Rook Overload - Potency increased from 400 to 800.
Bishop Overload - Potency increased from 300 to 600.

Look at that, every ability had heat gauge reduction and overload double potency. Pretty bad that they had to change it in such a drastic fashion.

11/1/17 Live Letter:

«Machinist»
Minor adjustments were made to both turrets’ effect, which increases the target's damage taken.
We believe that players are beginning to understand that “machinists are a powerful job if you’re able to master it.”

MCH is so powerful guys, you should be realizing it by now. In fact it's so powerful we will buff Hypercharge to show you

4.1 Changes:

Rook Autoturret - Hypercharge effect increasing target's damage taken increased from 5% to 6%.
Bishop Autoturret - Hypercharge effect increasing target's damage taken increased from 5% to 6%.

1/30/18 Live Letter

Machinist
We continued to make fine adjustments to machinists up until now, and the last adjustment made them too powerful, so Hypercharge effect increasing target's damage taken will be reduced.

Sorry guys, SE screwed up royally, MCH is now too strong and they must make immediate adjustments or else the Eorzea might possibly perish into the void forever.

4.2 Changes:

Rook Autoturret - Hypercharge effect increasing target's damage taken has been reduced from 6% to 5%.
Bishop Autoturret - Hypercharge effect increasing target's damage taken has been reduced from 6% to 5%.

And that was the last time we ever heard from SE regarding MCH.

R.I.P.

[Kitfox]

4.1 and 4.2 were nothing but a band-aid cover up for the broken turret: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...delay-patterns but of course they wouldn't admit that it was because of a bug. Turrets would randomly skip attacks resulting in roughly 30% less damage than expected. The sad thing is the 6% Hypercharge actually made MCH competitive with BRD, if only they hadn't nerfed it back down after fixing the turret. Going back and forth with the Vuln% like that caused so much confusion at the time. So basically, there has been no changes after 4.05 besides bug fixes (and those are a whole other can of worms).

While you could argue that the dps is competitive because content is clearable, the competitive part is only true for those with optimal latency. The fact is the rotation and design become extremely hostile with even the slightest amount of lag. Rapid Fire is simply a skill that should not exist with this combat system. There's also no other job in the game that requires you to practice muscle memory to the point Flamethrower does. Again, a slightest hick-up in connection quality will make you either miss the cut-off window or interrupt the thing early, which by the way makes it do nothing.

There's so many ways to alleviate the problems but the radio silence is deafening.

[whiskeybravo]

True, technically those changes cancel each other out so really nothing since the initial adjustments of 4.05. Kinda wish I had played it before then so I'd have an idea how it felt. As it is I can only imagine having to use Cooldown shot a lot more often and kinda odd Barrel Stabilizer was on 2 mins, that seems really strange to me since everything lines up at 60 sec now (and it makes sense, at least)

I'd also like to know what content he was referring to that MCH is apparently better suited for.

[Darkpaw]

Content he was referring too is as mythical as the "never seen before in any mmo content" that was promised throughout the stormblood promotion tour. non-existent

[Maltothoris]

Don't forget 4.06 where the duration of hot shot went from 30 sec to 60 and overheat damage from 10 to 20 percent and dismantle to 60 sec making the return of disable. Again, it does show the desperation when it came to the buffs in the early part of SB. Makes you wonder what going on.

In terms of the better suited, I think only o3s and o4s was there cause with the shorten cd to dismantle, it could be used for all the algamest back then but not so much now.

[Aiscence]

yup i'm really wondering what kind of content is suited for machinist. bosses have horribles timing making us do awkward stuff.

o9s: can't burst the orb so you have to wait till it comes back (and the big bang of the earth phase is too, having to wildfire but nope have to wait for the knockback for it)

o10s: so you have to 1) have your own nail, or 2) have to do a 2gcd opener. Can't burst a second time at fire orb phase.

o11 was okay and can't 12 this tier yet (Waiting to move out to take a static)

The extreme trial have weird timings too, with HS+FT for tsuku to put 2 WF betwee nthe burst, then a super long add phase and kinda the same to place a burst before Suzaku goes away or be awkward till she reappear to begin to burst.