Man & Machine: a MCH Thread

[Tizzy_Tormentor]

I respectfully disagree with everything in this thread sans the issues surrounding Flamethrower and Queen, which are both skills I think that need more interactivity and or reason to use them.

I enjoy MCH's rigid rotation with more emphasis on the speed than the complexity. Frankly, I would like to see them double down on the speed/Hypercharge aspect of the job despite issues with high ping players, as it is what separates MCH from the other ranged jobs. Give it procs and a more fluid rotation and it's nothing more than BRD/DNC without buffs.

I too am happy with its current design when it comes to its speed, MCH is straightforward but you always have an eye on timers to ensure there is no overlap during optimal play so you are constantly making sure the runway is always clear, so to speak, which I think clicks with a lot of players. I prefer it greatly to its SB design, though I still really miss its HW iteration, I also know that will never be coming back.

In terms of interactivity, I feel that Flamethrower as it is now is a consequence of the rework and should be looked at, I feel that it should interact with Bio Blaster, make it so targets that are suffering from BB take increased damage from Flamethrower, or perhaps they are afflicted with an extra short duration DoT, I also think Flamethrower itself could use a visual/audio touch up, it just doesn't feel impactful to use. If we are purely talking numbers, Flamethrower still cuts the mustard and is only below Auto Crossbow in potency, but I think just this extra interactivity would go a long way. I've see suggestions that it generate heat, but this would worry me, I don't want to see a scenario where we need to use Flamethrower on a single target again, this would hurt the flow of the job.

As for the Queen, it feels mostly like a glorified dot, but this is mostly a consequence of the games current design than a problem with the job, they have been weaning out most interactivity outside of whats on your current hotbar, even SMN/SCH go through this, with their skills being taken off their egis and put on the GCD, we do get a little bit of interactivity, we can choose when to summon it, which affects duration and we can make it leave early if we so choose, but I feel it could use just a bit more, I enjoy its presence, but I feel it could have one or two extra buttons along with Overdrive, something for us to think about while its summoned, could even make it do aoe if two or more targets are within range.

the Speed isnt the issue its the tight windows for wildfire and the mundane heat blast spam, My perfect MCH will never align with anyones but you cross a line when the job gets unplayable due to said Heat blast spam. That takes priority imo

I would argue that Heat Blast is just a really unimpressive button to push frequently, that is one skill you won't hear me complain about when it comes to needing a serious bump up in animation and sound design, I like the Hypercharge phase, but Heat Blast, Gauss Round and Ricochet do not roll off each other smoothly when it comes to animations, I think all 3 should have their animations reworked so they all flow into each other cleanly and smoothly, I think that would do a lot to brighten up the Hypercharge, as it is, I enjoy it, I wouldn't say its outright "spam" since you will be alternating between Heat Blast, Gauss Round and Ricochet very quickly at all times, but I understand this might be a problem for players with high ping/play on dial up or something, even giving you 5 stacks won't help you weave properly without clipping.

My suggestion is to make tune down the animation lock on HB/GR/R, so weaving between them all is smoother, but I won't pretend I know how this would interact with the servers or that it would be a guaranteed solution to the problem, the thing is, I really enjoy the speed and resets and really don't want to see them changed because some people can't do it properly because their connection isn't up to snuff, its like how they reworked Sleeve Draw because some players couldn't deal with using all the cards properly so they just made it so you get less cards overall, it sets a bad precedent and I don't want that to happen here.

As for Wildfire, yeah, this one just feels like a bit of a leftover, I definitely feel it deserves a spot on MCH's toolkit, but it really adds nothing, since you just throw it into your standard hypercharge phase with no difference, a couple of suggestions I've seen are about bumping up its potency or interactivity, suggestions like making the Queen contribute towards the total, make it so the oGCDs affect it (granted, this would change nothing) lower the cooldown to 60s or even make it a guaranteed Direct/Crit, because if its going to be on a 2 minute cooldown, might as well make it your hardest hitting attack.

[Tsumdere]

As insecure as i am with showing criticisms to one of my favorite jobs in the game ima speak out on this

the Speed isnt the issue its the tight windows for wildfire and the mundane heat blast spam, My perfect MCH will never align with anyones but you cross a line when the job gets unplayable due to said Heat blast spam. That takes priority imo

Speed and the wildfire windows are one and the same. If you do not have a problem with the speed, you do not have a problem with the Wildfire window.

As for the Heat Blast spam, if that is all you are doing, you are doing it incorrectly. The Heat Blast window contains three buttons that are pressed in quick succession as to maximize DPS since each Heat Blast lowers the cooldown of Ricochet and Gauss Round. Overcapping on either of those two means you are losing DPS.
I struggle to understand to understand how Heat Blast can be "mundane" when it is arguably one of the most high intensity part of MCH rotation, especially during heavy movement.

It sounds mean, but at some point if they want to introduce a "quick" job, they will have to design it in such a way that high ping players will never be able to maximize. There is nothing wrong with having one job that is ping unfriendly.

I too am happy with its current design when it comes to its speed, MCH is straightforward but you always have an eye on timers to ensure there is no overlap during optimal play so you are constantly making sure the runway is always clear, so to speak, which I think clicks with a lot of players. I prefer it greatly to its SB design, though I still really miss its HW iteration, I also know that will never be coming back.

As for Wildfire, yeah, this one just feels like a bit of a leftover, I definitely feel it deserves a spot on MCH's toolkit, but it really adds nothing, since you just throw it into your standard hypercharge phase with no difference, a couple of suggestions I've seen are about bumping up its potency or interactivity, suggestions like making the Queen contribute towards the total, make it so the oGCDs affect it (granted, this would change nothing) lower the cooldown to 60s or even make it a guaranteed Direct/Crit, because if its going to be on a 2 minute cooldown, might as well make it your hardest hitting attack.

MCH has never been more popular, which speaks volumes. It's understandable that people might miss what it used to be, but frankly the numbers speak and the direction MCH went is healthier.

I would actually like it if Wildfire was on a 60s CD, since now I feel like it lines up pretty funky in certain fights.

[Jirah]

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Firstly, if your measuring a jobs popularity as its main source of satisfaction then its severely flawed. If that were the case GNB and DNC are perfect jobs. but i digress

agree to disagree I suppose but MCH is not in a good place. with its "popularity" i hope it doesnt just get a AOE judging by the stans that exist today swearing MCH is perfect. Mains should hope for improvement not stagnation.

as someone whos mained the job since HW this is the worst incarnation of the job so far. Nothing adds up, Heat blast spamming is boring even with the extra button you press, Turrets and wildfire are super inconsequential and loose, Rotation is the most boring rotation in the game, tanks have better rotation, Drill and Air flow unnaturally with everything, refilling Rico and Guass is awkwardly tied to Heat blast.

but ignore all this and have fun with your job, but its lacking alot being more mindless than DNC but less fun and is only getting a pass due to its DPS

[Tizzy_Tormentor]

but ignore all this and have fun with your job, but its lacking alot being more mindless than DNC but less fun and is only getting a pass due to its DPS

Come now, you think people are happy with MCH purely because of its dps? Have you forgotten that even after they heavily buffed SB MCH, that still no one played it because it was so bad that the devs had to apologies for its state and promise a rework because not only was it borderline unplayable for some people, it wasn't fun either, it was an incredibly clumsy and overly punishing job I played quite a bit of SB MCH and as someone who has also played since HW, I would argue that its SB incarnation is still the worst by far, which was so bad that its poor design bled into ShB MCH and is the cause of most of its issues, using flamethrower to slip into overheat never felt good, reapplying the gauss barrel never felt good, losing GCD uptime because the heated shots reverted back to the normal ones at the wrong time never felt good, it was a disjointed, poorly cobbled together mess that wasn't even fun to level due to its pathetically poor skill spread, I will agree that HW MCH was its best incarnation, but not that ShB is its worst, you think ShB MCH is a ghastly mockery of the true job? No, that dishonor goes firmly to SB MCH, the ultimate blemish on MCHs legacy that almost killed the job due to its woeful design and peak unpopularity.

ShB MCH takes MCH in a more focused direction, it focuses on GCD optimization and speed/cooldown resets, you constantly keep an eye on your timings and try to ensure there is no overlap/overcapping when you use hypercharge, you are given some wiggle room to work with, this gives the job a strong sense of flow, you try to argue that things flow unnaturally with each other, but this is objectively untrue, everything falls into place as you play, you are always building resources to spend, resources you can either spend immediately or keep for raid buffs, this is why I actually like the Queen, since you have the choice of when to summon them and even the choice to use pile bunker early, thus giving you interactivity that you can summon Queen to take advantage of raid buffs or to push a phase early, this is unlike almost any other summon in the game, would you argue this is "mindless" MCH play? I will admit, I think we should give Queen an extra layer of interactivity with another button or two, I think its fine in its implementation, its hardly any less engaging then the drop and forget turrets, which I liked. I would really struggle to say its way more mindless than DNC, hell I'd put it on par with BRD for the most part, I don't think 1-2-3-1-2-3 is inherently worse than 1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-2-1-1-1-2, even when you say Heat Blast is "mundane" or "spammy" its still a high cut above any other of its type due to its speed and oGCD resets, making your hypercharge phase very active in comparison to any other phase of its type.

Do I think the job is perfect? Not quite, but I think a solid foundation has been set to expand upon, one that has proven popular, fun and functional. I think they can give Flamethrower and Wildfire a look over, I wish they developed MCH's debuffer skills like Dismantle and stuff further instead of homogenizing the ranged role, do I think they could have added a few more buttons and an extra layer of complexity? Sure, but given what they had to work with, essentially having to reverse engineer a disjointed, cluttered mess of a job (SB MCH) into one that's actually functional, I'd say they did more than a good job, in my opinion, it doesn't need another rework, I hope we get more as we go forward, instead of going through another set of streamlining. I understand not liking the direction a job has taken, but I think you are exaggerating its problems, I genuinely dislike the direction the healing role has taken this expansion, but I don't think the jobs are mockeries of their older incarnations, merely that I hope they seek to improve them as the game moves forward, because I understand what they tried to do, but their implementation just didn't work well with the games design (when you can beat E4S without a healer, you know something went wrong)

[Jirah]

Snip .

Unplayable? im glad they fixed that all good and no one thinks that nowadays..Is there a link to this apology? I dont wanna say "I highly doubt it" but i dont think a single job in SB was worth a apology not even Monk. The way your wording this is very hyperbolic as the absolute worst case scenario for any job is that its clunky or unfun idk why your wording with such disdain.

and of course its not the only factor but since BRD and DNC does a helluva lot more, it needs to compensate by doing more damage. that 1-2 complaint is rubbish when both have a chance to flourish and have a fan flourish to flourish ontop of saber dances, and finishes and main flourishes giving you all its procs. while MCH has a static 1-2-3 and nothing else besides the two GCD skills that interrupt it every 40/20 seconds,the turret (which btw is a DPS lose if you use Overdrive too early unless its a phase change or the boss is dieing) and the 5 spam shot your doing along with the pointless stackables. Charges are done worse when in DPS as the best way to utilize them is to spend them all unless ur Heat blasting then u can use them to death and wait until 1 or 2 restores manually. Heat blast being locked behind heat rather than replacing a skill is also odd since under no circumstances are you advised to press anything else besides heat blast and Rico/guass during heat blast phase. and why? why not just have it be the rotation? rather than a singular boring skill with the same potency as Split shot. and why have it refuel every 15 seconds when the CD is 30? why not a whole skill and why even tie it down to Heat blast why not have it as a trait or somthing?

also popularity means nothing a popular job doesn't mean a good job which i stated earlier. Skill spread in 4.0 wasnt the best but did they spread out the main rotation through 10 levels due to what i assume a lack of skills? lv54 you get Heated split and dont get Heated clean until the 60s hows that for crappy spread.

this small debate if i can even call it that proved to be underwhelming and i remained unconvinced of 5.0 worth, ur examples arent daily occurrences like the queen argument and dragging DNC and BRD superior designs is laughable to say the least. also funny you left out wildfire but it is inconsequential after all

Id argue fixing 4.0 is easier than making 5.0 intuitive and 5.0 is not nor is it the best incarnation of MCH.

[Tizzy_Tormentor]

snip snip

I will look for the apology, I believe it was during one of the fanfests before ShB in 2018-2019 in a panel/Q&A, but old archives aren't all that easy to find and they tend to be very long, but I will try comb through old footage if I can find it.

The 1-2 complaint was directed at Bard, not Dancer, perhaps I should have clarified, one of the key points of your argument is that 1-2-3-1-2-3 with breaks for Drill Air Anchor is boring, yet bard will mostly be doing 1-1-2-1-2-1-1-1-2 with breaks for Apex Arrow and Iron Jaws, MCH will be using Gauss/Richochet which are both on 3 charges each, BRD will be using Emphreal, Pitch Perfects and Blood Letters, the difference being resets for MCH happen in its Hypercharge and use its resets very quickly, for BRD, they happen over time, different flow, but for the most part, deliver a similar experience, I will definitely agree that Bard has a more interactive kit with lots of abilities that work off each other, I enjoy playing it for that reason, but Bard hasn't had a major rework this expansion, it mostly had things added and slightly tweaked, so they had a more concrete vision they could deliver, they likely had trouble with MCH because they had to rework it from SB MCH, which restricted them on what they could rework overall if they had to keep in old skills like Flamethrower, hence the lack of interaction. My point wasn't to say Bard or Dancer are bad, I enjoy them just as much as MCH and hold them mostly to the same standard.
Also your point about "its a dps loss to Overdrive too early unless its a phase change or the boss is dying" is literally my point, you can summon it early to push a phase, summon it to take advantage of raid buffs and if the boss is gonna jump/die, you can force it to use its finisher faster, this is what I mean by interactivity.
As for Heat Blast, the thing is, outside of Hypercharge, it effectively has little use, its the same potency as Split Shot, but Heat Blast has a lower recast timer and resets GCDs, not to mention Hypercharge itself adds 20 potency so you are firing off for higher damage at an increased speed, the same applies for Auto Crossbow, you are firing it much faster, I agree you could probably bump up Heat Blast/Auto numbers a bit to make them stand out a little more, but otherwise it makes perfect sense.

Popularity doesn't mean its good, true, yet don't you think its popular for a reason? If we are talking strictly dps, all the ranged are on the lower end of the spectrum and MCH doesn't even have party buffs to set it apart, yet its still played much more than before, saying its played just for its dps is nonsense, people clearly enjoy playing it, for all its problems, there are a lot of people who are happy with MCH as it is now, people wouldn't be happy with it if it was all the things you say it is.

I only bring in BRD/DNC because you have, basically saying Dancer is less mindless and comparing MCH unfavorably to Bard in your OP, so should I just ignore portions of your points? Also we have already talked about Wildfire in this thread and page already, practically everyone agrees they should do something with it, what's your point here?
"this small debate proved to be underwhelming" yeah, tell me about it, well I've said my piece and argued my points, with the key takeaway being that I greatly disagree with your views on ShB MCH, aside from the points we have already gone over (AoE, Flamethrower, Wildfire, Latency) and am unconvinced that it is even half as bad as you say it is, or that its design is vastly inferior to other jobs.

They already fixed 4.0 MCH, the result is ShB MCH, if they started from the ground up or perhaps used HW MCH as its base, it might have been better, the point is, MCH's right now now is the result of salvaging SB MCH into a more playable state, it worked, I'm not sure what you mean about 5.0 not being intuitive and I've already said this isn't the best incarnation of MCH, for me, its very cleanly HW > ShB > SB.

[reivaxe]

I only bring in BRD/DNC because you have, basically saying Dancer is less mindless and comparing MCH unfavorably to Bard in your OP, so should I just ignore portions of your points?

As someone who has all 3 ranged maxed ...

I have to say, current Mch is the most braindead job in the game.

I use to think Dnc was the braindead easiest until played more DPS jobs and I noticed that not everyone plays like me. I'm a recovering clicker who mained tanks until this expac, I'm use to just looking at my hotbar for most of the fight. Dnc's RNG actually requires you pay attention to different procs, it's got a lite "rotation" based around RNG, much of what you do is priority based decision making in nature. Brd also requires you pay attention to DoTs and RNG procs and buff timers so that you can snap shot dots for more DPS.

I think the divide here is thinking that pressing a 1-2-3 over and over inherently requires more thought than actually engaging in a RNG system that demands a certain amount of your attention.

I didn't play any other version of Mch but as it is, at lvl 80 it requires the least amount of thought of any DPS imo based on what the job ask of the player. No Procs to think about, full freedom of movement, no dots or self/ party buffs to think about ontop of a rigid rotation.

It's cool if people enjoy it though, I'd never say people shouldn't like XYZ job. But personally I feel Dnc is in a GREAT spot design wise/ Brd isn't the best but not a hard thing to fix/ Mch needs more things to do and think about ... and less reliance on spamy BS as a cover up for it's design shortcomings.

[Tsumdere]

Firstly, if your measuring a jobs popularity as its main source of satisfaction then its severely flawed. If that were the case GNB and DNC are perfect jobs. but i digress

agree to disagree I suppose but MCH is not in a good place. with its "popularity" i hope it doesnt just get a AOE judging by the stans that exist today swearing MCH is perfect. Mains should hope for improvement not stagnation.

as someone whos mained the job since HW this is the worst incarnation of the job so far. Nothing adds up, Heat blast spamming is boring even with the extra button you press, Turrets and wildfire are super inconsequential and loose, Rotation is the most boring rotation in the game, tanks have better rotation, Drill and Air flow unnaturally with everything, refilling Rico and Guass is awkwardly tied to Heat blast.

but ignore all this and have fun with your job, but its lacking alot being more mindless than DNC but less fun and is only getting a pass due to its DPS

As someone who has also mained the job since HW (actually on and off in SB because it was so bad), is an Ultimate raider with it, and at a cursory glance seem to perform at a much higher level than your abilities with MCH (since we're pulling out personal achievements and sass), this iteration of MCH IS the best MCH has ever been. Things are not popular for no reason - there is a big reason why MCH went from one of the least played classes to one of the most played, and it is because it's better and people like it more.

And I am not saying MCH is perfect, because it's not. I would love some extra care taken with Queen and Flamethrower. I would also love them to perhaps touch up Bioblaster a bit more since MCH struggles a lot with encounters with two targets. I even posted above you that I think it would be a great idea to lower Wildfire cooldown to line up with the speed playstyle better.

Your personal anecdotes and opinions are not fact. I am sorry that your favorite job playstyle got phased out because bow/gun mage was unpopular, but that's how the cookie crumbles. I am still waiting for a true DoT mage since they reworked SMN. Better luck in future jobs.