Man & Machine: a MCH Thread

[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.

[MagiusNecros]

MCH needs some synergy with Flamethrower and another way to build up Battery.

AQ sucks. Too much startup IMO. I preferred the Turret.

[ty_taurus]

On my quest to level all jobs to 80, my next in line is MCH (which is currently sitting at level 77). For reference, I was almost exclusively a healer until Shadowbringers came out in which I immediately dropped healing for Dancer and have played Dancer almost exclusively in end game content (including Savage).

A part of my challenge in playing MCH correctly is undoubtably experience, but what I've noticed now that I essentially have all my tools is that the engagement factor seems to be managing all your cooldowns. I need to focus on using Drill/Bio Blaster, Anchor Shot, Wildfire, Reassemble, and Autoturret (later Automaton Queen) on cooldown while ensuring my Hypercharge phases aren't causing these cooldowns to clip. Before when Gauss Round and Ricochet only had 2 charges max, I also wanted to make sure that they weren't going to CD overflow when using Heat Blast, though that's become a lot more comfortable with the charges now increased to 3.

I find myself paying a lot of attention to all these CDs to try and make sure I'm using them correctly, but I assume this gets a lot easier with practice? If so, I can understand why it might seem more brain dead, but thus far I find it a lot to pay attention to.

[Valence]

AOE
A underrated topic is a Jobs AOE capabilities. and as for MCH ...well its better than 4.0 but has the same "disjointed" issue. Ricochet is my personal favorite skill concept and all but doesnt work well as a AOE as MCH has no way of recharging it in a AOE situation unless you Heat Blast a target at least twice but even then it just ends up being clunky and not worth the effort. Flamethrower used to accumulate heat now its one of MCH forgotten skills outclassed by Spread shot+ Auto crossbow. I doubt it would break the game to allow flamethrower to gain 5 heat per tick (55 Heat) with its restricted mobility and every 60 seconds it should suffice for what its doing. Also why does Auto and Spread do the exact same damage? More importantly why is this skill gated behind overheat? When Skill bloat is a common issue youd think SE would replace it, but it wouldn't feel as great to overheat it? idk also Bioblaster is fine as is, its a dot thats its purpose even if its only tie to the rest of the job is sharing a recast timer with Drill.

While I want to state that I fully agree that ShB MCH is a disgrace of a braindead and bland job that removed all the cool things we had (ammo, procs, piano wildfire every minute, very high burst phases followed by lulls, etc) and also agree with what you have said in the OP, and how at the opposite of this I loved the job epitome of concept (Stormblood MCH, even with the metric ton of QoL problems it had), I still want to point out that SB MCH AoE was actually a very interesting thing that nobody seemed to quite know how to play properly. It basically worked similarly to single target except you overheated manually then proceeded to do a rapid fire "dump everything" under overheat, followed by snapshotting flamethrower at the very end of overheat for that sweet damage buff that covered all of the barrel lockout phase. The damage you got out of this was actually pretty high and I miss it too.

[Jirah]

While I want to state that I fully agree that ShB MCH is a disgrace of a braindead and bland job that removed all the cool things we had (ammo, procs, piano wildfire every minute, very high burst phases followed by lulls, etc) and also agree with what you have said in the OP, and how at the opposite of this I loved the job epitome of concept (Stormblood MCH, even with the metric ton of QoL problems it had), I still want to point out that SB MCH AoE was actually a very interesting thing that nobody seemed to quite know how to play properly. It basically worked similarly to single target except you overheated manually then proceeded to do a rapid fire "dump everything" under overheat, followed by snapshotting flamethrower at the very end of overheat for that sweet damage buff that covered all of the barrel lockout phase. The damage you got out of this was actually pretty high and I miss it too.

Bishop-> Hypercharge-> Pray the tank stays in the bishops line of fire->Hot Shot --> Reload-->Flamethrower->Rapid fire--> Reassemble-> Spread Shot/Ricochet-> if the mobs are still alive overdrive

compared to 5.0 the dps was alot of prep work but that first line of mobs completely melts with good aoes. After that its just spread spam and a occasional Ricochet and deploying Bishop next to the tank.

5.0 has no wild factor but is more consistent even if its most likely the most boring job to aoe even after its new tools which are a dot, ricochet charges that do not blend well what so ever with anything since heat blast is a single target action, auto cross to work with heat and spread shot. ...i see your point i guess its debatable as 4.0 slows to a crawl but 5.0 never really hits any highs

[Jirah]

On my quest to level all jobs to 80, my next in line is MCH (which is currently sitting at level 77). For reference, I was almost exclusively a healer until Shadowbringers came out in which I immediately dropped healing for Dancer and have played Dancer almost exclusively in end game content (including Savage).

A part of my challenge in playing MCH correctly is undoubtably experience, but what I've noticed now that I essentially have all my tools is that the engagement factor seems to be managing all your cooldowns. I need to focus on using Drill/Bio Blaster, Anchor Shot, Wildfire, Reassemble, and Autoturret (later Automaton Queen) on cooldown while ensuring my Hypercharge phases aren't causing these cooldowns to clip. Before when Gauss Round and Ricochet only had 2 charges max, I also wanted to make sure that they weren't going to CD overflow when using Heat Blast, though that's become a lot more comfortable with the charges now increased to 3.

I find myself paying a lot of attention to all these CDs to try and make sure I'm using them correctly, but I assume this gets a lot easier with practice? If so, I can understand why it might seem more brain dead, but thus far I find it a lot to pay attention to.

in fact you get all ur tools to have a optimized 80 rotation by lv 50, 58 u get drill which is like fleche and only act as damage, and 66 with stabilizer and everything is is shallow "upgrades"

MCH 4.0 issues with progression is you get skills that dont make sense or useless way too early. While 5.0 busts its load at 50 and barely evolves at all through the 30 levels making it feel hella stale. Your rotation used to be in a single trait at lv 64 now stretched out awkwardly at lv54 lv 60 and lv 64 and i have no clue why they did this Drill could be moved to 60 and the whole rotation be at 64 like in 4.0...and man im digressing again. Yea the job doesnt evolve much from 50 most of its new tools are upgrades

[Valence]

Bishop-> Hypercharge-> Pray the tank stays in the bishops line of fire->Hot Shot --> Reload-->Flamethrower->Rapid fire--> Reassemble-> Spread Shot/Ricochet-> if the mobs are still alive overdrive

That's the thing... Everyone was so focused on overheating with FT for AoE in SB that they passed right by the more potent FT snapshot at the end of overheat. I had no small end of debates with people on the balance in that specific case scenario (aka dungeons especially). Overheating manually was way superior for the simple reason that it allowed you to keep FT as an actual potent damage tool (over 200 potency per GCD once overheated back then) instead of an overheat trigger like on single targets. The first pack was annoying since you had to build heat from 50, but past that point you often ended with 80-95 heat after every other pack which allowed an instant manual overheat (build up the remaining heat while the tank pulls if necessary).

Anyway, the most ironic thing ever is that while FT almost doubled in potency in ShB, it remains barely, slightly better than your standard AoE rotation and conflicts with everything you have. In SB, while FT was pretty low potency it was still insanely good once overheated in AoE, and in FT, while it was clunky as fuck, it was still mandatory as an overheating trigger.

Now though, it's just... there. Good skill to spamm in Limsa to impress sprouts I guess.

[Jirah]

That's the thing... Everyone was so focused on overheating with FT for AoE in SB that they passed right by the more potent FT snapshot at the end of overheat. I had no small end of debates with people on the balance in that specific case scenario (aka dungeons especially). Overheating manually was way superior for the simple reason that it allowed you to keep FT as an actual potent damage tool (over 200 potency per GCD once overheated back then) instead of an overheat trigger like on single targets.

Anyway, the most ironic thing ever is that while FT almost doubled in potency in ShB, it remains barely, slightly better than your standard AoE rotation and conflicts with everything you have. In SB, while FT was pretty low potency it was still insanely good once overheated in AoE, and in FT, while it was clunky as fuck, it was still mandatory as an overheating trigger.

Now though, it's just... there. Good skill to spamm in Limsa to impress sprouts I guess.

I usually rapid fired as soon as i started to overheat combined with invul Motar did well enough. But I agree on that point that a skill used to immediately overheat was a blatant given, even the PVP skill "Stun Gun" did this to much praise and was odd MCH never got a skill like this until the following expansion

I wouldve loved to see them fix 4.0 as it has alot of skill fat and QoL adjustments away from being great instead of just quit and delete 40% of the job. Like remove rapid fire and combine it with overheat, have Hot shot, Blank, Cooldown, and Clean shot not absorb Ammo, add a new skill to trigger overheat rather than relying on flamthrower, remove Gauss barrel and just have it as a permanent skill gauge. Remove Heartbreak and blank, par for the course. with the tp skills removal and role actions removal This alone would've gave them plenty of elbow room to spice up MCH having only 19 plus its role skills being Peloton, Arms length and second wind being 22 skills left out of the 32 slots while 5.0 has the same amount suspiciously but the skills added were toothless like Tactician drill and Bioblaster and downgraded or increased CD to some like Wildfire or hypercharge or "Heat Blast". Id love to talk about the potential of a actual revision of 4.0 but everyone seems either doesnt care or moved on

[Valence]

Ah don't get me started on how ShB made everything selfish and removed all kind of support skills we had in role actions... Losing all the MP and TP regen among other things completely moved rPhys jobs out of their niche and now it just seems that nobody is quite sure what their new role should be besides... a subpar DPS since it has nothing else to fend for itself.

Also, having CD and Clean consuming ammo wasn't necessarily a bad thing since it was necessary for it to happen during WF to get the most potency out of it.

[Jirah]

Ah don't get me started on how ShB made everything selfish and removed all kind of support skills we had in role actions... Losing all the MP and TP regen among other things completely moved rPhys jobs out of their niche and now it just seems that nobody is quite sure what their new role should be besides... a subpar DPS since it has nothing else to fend for itself.

Also, having CD and Clean consuming ammo wasn't necessarily a bad thing since it was necessary for it to happen during WF to get the most potency out of it.

I never had issues with wrongfully using ammo, but from what I saw on the forums a lot of people did. The Ammo (or how I used it anyways) was to bridge a guarantee to Clean shot. It goes reload then Split-Slug-Split to have 2 procs one for Slug and one for Clean. Then you’d use Clean, QL, then Slug and Clean. This whole thing went against the instinct to do 1-2-3 which made MCH have a wayward rotation compared to many generic 1-2-3 rotations at the time.