Man & Machine: a MCH Thread

[CKNovel]

Battery gauge
That's a glorified dot.
Is it above 50 battery? Is the ennemy targetable for 10 seconds? Use it. That's not even the most barebone process of thinking accross the Machinist kit.
You can add "Are the Raidwide buffs coming soon?" into the process but that's it. The Queen Wind-up was thought to be a problem but it barely happens.

The Queen needs more interaction, but like Phoenix, not like Bahamut or the other summons unless they completely rework pet behavior.

Reassemble is a great tool. It reduces the dice roll on Drill but is also a great mark to know how far you are from the raidwide buffs. It lines extremely well with Trick Attack, both being 60s cooldown, Reassemble is a good cooldown that has multiple application beyond damage. Without it, you could count every 3 Drill or half wildfire.

Wildfire
Wildfire... Is in my opinion the worst of all usable/viable 60s+ cooldowns in the game.
Here's the complete thought process:
1) Is it available?
2) Do you have 50 heat?
3) Use it, then use Hypercharge.

That's it, you can't make it even less complex. The best way to describe it is an empowered Hypercharge every 120 seconds.
Or a 1200 potency cooldown with a 10 seconds delay.
Not only it doesn't has any AoE potential like the community kept asking, but being reduced to a "powerfull Hypercharge" just stripped anything that was cool about Wildfire (The setup, the execution, the result).

Solution? Get rid of it or completely rework it. I feel that the theme of a "ticking bomb" only hurts Wildfire.

Traits
Look at them.
Increase damages, increase damages, replace 1 GCD with a more powerfull version, replace 1 GCD with a more powerfull version, replace 1 GCD with a more powerfull version, grant 1 additionnal charges on GR/Ricochet, replace 1 GCD with a more powerfull version, increases damages, replace 1 Cooldown with a more powerfull version.

None of the actual traits adds depth to the MCH gameplay. GR/Ricochet should have 3 charges at the beginning, you easily bleed a charge at only 2 stacks.
Goes the same for wildfire, there's no need of gutting its damages just to add a trait "MoRe DAmAgeS" later.

Most if not nearly all traits needs to get the hell out. Again, it's the lazy, half baked part of the rework so we could still have the flips.

To Continue…

[CKNovel]

Heat gauge and the GCDs
Here we are, reaching the core of the job.
And the most problematic part.
Heat gauge is bad. Fill up to 50, spend 50 to spam the same GCD. It works for Auto Cross Bow but like previously said, it won't be used at all if there is not 3 targets.
The skillspeed + Cooldown refill is a mistake, but if we remove one of those, we fall in the boring gameplay. And it's already boring.

Limiting the combo to 1-2-3 is exceptionally boring. There is no DPS that has GCD combos limited to 1-2-3. It worked in HW/SB due to the RNG nature of MCH but doesn't anymore. Another remnant of the lazy, half backed rework.

Barrel Stabilizer is a SB remnant aswell, the 50 heat is supposed to synchronize with Wildfire but it doesn't works. Every next wildfire will never be synchronized with Wildfire as Barrel Stabilizer needs to be delayed due to heat already being over 50 everytime. A very easy fix would have been to make the next Hypercharge Free instead of 50 heat. But there was no testing, no changes, so it falls into the lazy rework.

I truly hope 6.0 won't come in with a Confiteor skill to end Hypercharge. No one ever liked the "Stance spam", it hurts more DRK/MCH gameplay than giving them anything. It works with PLD Requiecast and WAR Inner Release as there isa bit more setup required.

To Continue…

[CKNovel]

MCH iterations
Overrall, ShB MCH is a good step in the right direction, but its rework felt as there was nothing gained from Stormblood. You have the 3 new GCDs, the Barrel Stabilizer, Heat blast and the Flamethrower. All of them have been reworked, but none of them feels like they define the Machinist.

The job suffers way too much from past iteration.
In HW it was designed with casts in mind, rapidfire gave it instant casts.
In SB they removed casts, MCH was not designed with permanent instant casts so they added the horrible heat gauges.
in ShB they realized they screwed up and forgot what a Machinist was, so hey, machines after 2 expansions. But they half reworked the job and we now have that empty shell of a job that suffers from a pointless 1 2 3 combo, a bad heat gauge and no interaction with the Automaton.
It feels like a SB job in ShB. One expansion was missed, they erased and redid.

Next to that, you have jobs that are way too loved.
SMN, gets a new pet and it has a full kit. SMN is bad to play due to pet behavior, but it received way too many attention.
BLM received massives QoLs, their traits defined their core and corrected massive problems (0 PM Ice spell, Polyglot charges, Dynamisation cooldown), not simply "MoRe DAmAgeS" traits.
DRG had many of its problems fixed, there was not many, but the Jump is faster, life and blood of the dragon are now maxed which eases the rotation...

MCH remains with a boring rotation and cooldowns completely useless.
There is certainly a bias towards Casters this expansion, some Melee DPS bears great sufferings. MNK will never be forgotten, but DRG, NIN and SAM are definitely complete kitwise.
I also plays SAM from times to times, still learning but the rotation is very smooth, each cooldowns has their uses, except maybe one we know has Kaeshi Higanbana. Funny enough, SAM had a quick response to fix Shôha but MCH was ignored.
Also during SB, MCH was a mess and completely ignore, but SMN and NIN had insanely quick response.
To Continue…

[CKNovel]

My wishlist for 6.0 is simple, it may be slightly too early for that but they might be in the process of imagining what they'll do with the job next:
-Rework Flamethrower, don't make it a trait, rework it, it's a shame to see this cooldown defining most Machinist in such a state.
-Better heat gauge, no one like spamming one ability and Machinist spams the most of it. It's bad, no one likes it and it's not friendly towards latency.
-Wildfire, rework it or delete it, either goes in the trashcan or rework, it's a bad 120s cooldown with no interactivity and no thought process beyong Hypercharge.
-Don't make another Choice GCD there is too much of it on MCH, you'd better not make Noise Blaster useless with a shared cooldown on Air Anchor. Also don't even dare about creating a choice between AoE and Single Target Automaton.
-Interactivity with the Automaton Queen, I know MCH have been asking for Lead Shot or a dot since its removal in HW, but giving a cool looking Automaton to MCH then making it a glorified dot is as fun as making turtle races between each other for a salad.
-Test the job and its rotation, how comes there is no one in Square Enix trying Machinist job and not pointing out how Wildfire has no interactivity, how there is a heat problem with Barrel Stabilizer and how you can't fix it for a simple QoL?
-Show us the "Love" for machines, there is many times where Yoshi-P claims the teams loves Machines but Machinist had to wait a whole Stormblood expansion to fix a broken job and barely any changes happened on Machinist during ShB? Shôha was reworked when it didn't needed to be and could work this way for a whole expansion without bothering anyone.
-Rework the ranged rôle, in HW, ranged were the top of the support DPS. In SB, ranged were the top of the support DPS. Support was the keyword but the rangeds are now in a mess of a spot where they don't have damages, no support and all they can do is bring a 1% bonus stat to the team. MCH is limited to Tactician when it had Refresh, Palisade and Dismantle.

Please Square Enix, it was a good beginning but give us the other half of the rework.
It's tiring to see that the Machinist only shined in only half of an expansion. It was bad in SB and brought nothing in ShB and is a bore to play. The only reason you want to bring a MCH over the other ranged is because it's the best thing in the trash can. It's not the rotten meat named Bard, it's the half eaten apple.

And that’s it.
Sorry about the pâté, but 3k characters is way too low to have a correct debate.