MCH with high ping. Possible...?

[Hezzlocks]

I'll never even reach ultimate so that's not an issue XD My MCH is lv 80 now, and it's really fun, I'll keep playing it

Yeah I'll likely never try that myself either, but yeah, MCH is in a great spot for casual play right now, even with a bit of ping behind it, and that includes Extreme trials, so you're gold. The biggest issue that comes up right now is trying to optimize Hyperdrive so that you don't cap on Ricochet and Gauss Round. Normally you need to weave at least one of each in to prevent capping, but if your ping prevents you from doing that without losing a Heat Blast (you get 5 per Hyperdrive) then you can compensate by just making sure you have 0 charges of each, and if there's still 20+ seconds to recharge the first charge you can even do it without capping at all.

Apparently for perfect play it's a little more complicated than that, but for casual play, that's about the only thing you need to worry about beyond pressing buttons as they light up and resource management.

[Dogempire]

For casual play, absolutely 100% yes, you can play MCH perfectly fine.

For optimized play in Savage, you may have a little difficulty getting the most out of it, but you'll still be leagues more viable than pre ShB.

For perfect play in Ultimate, ehhhh i dunno. You could probably do it but not perfectly.

Wait what about Ultimate makes MCH with high ping undoable?

[Hezzlocks]

Wait what about Ultimate makes MCH with high ping undoable?

I never said undoable, I actually said you probably could do it, just it'd be more difficult to pull off.

The thing about Ultimate is that player skill and efficiency matters more than gear. Savage already works towards that trend, but it can be outgeared. Ultimate, not quite so much. Obviously gear is always important, but Ultimate relies more on you being able to squeeze out as much from your job as possible while still being able to perform mechanics properly. Since MCH can do everything but Flamethrower on the move, the performing mechanics bit isn't so serious with high ping so long as you know what's coming and move immediately, it's the performance part that may take a hit.

Hyperdrive is the key here. You get 5 Heat Blasts per Hyperdrive, no problem, but Heat Blast generates Ricochet and Gauss charges, and you never really want to be capped on either of them as being capped on them means over the course of the fight you're losing damage from lost charges. Each Hyperdrive will regenerate 2.5 charges of both, technically about 2.8 charges if you factor in the 8 second duration of Hyperdrive. This means that the game is currently set up so that you can pull this off even without weaving a shot, but only if you activate Hyperdrive at about 0.2 charges (about 24-25 seconds left on charge time).

In Ultimate you're likely trying to work around such things as Trick Attack timings to maximise your damage output, which means it isn't always going to be possible to only ever activate Hyperdrive during that little sweet spot. With low ping, this would be fine, as you'd only ever really need to weave in 1 Ricochet and 1 Gauss Round to keep that covered (though honestly if you're working with Trick Attack timings you're more likely weaving between *every* Heat Blast). With high ping, however, trying to do this will cause enough clipping that you will actually lose 1 Heat Blast from your Hyperdrive rotation, which is more devastating than it sounds. It's lost damage on its own, sure, but it's also 15 seconds Ricochet and Gauss Round recharge lost, *and* if this happens while you're using Wildfire, that's one less Weaponskill used during Wildfire, so it too is doing less damage.

You can probably still do Ultimate as a high ping MCH, but you certainly won't be perfect, which adds a little more pressure on to everyone else. Of course, you could say the same about many other jobs with high ping, too, just MCH is still slightly more at the mercy of ping when it comes to perfect play than others. It's still LEAGUES better than it was before, SB MCH was just horrible with high ping, so it's still doable in high end content, still viable for Savage, and still perfectly good for any other casual content. SB MCH was way more at the mercy of ping, and was only really viable for for casual content if you had a high ping. So, definitely an improvement.