Adjustments to MCH design without reworking from scratch

[Payotz]

There are a couple ways to make "selfish" abilities that still add dps utility. For example, Wildfire could be upgraded so that not just your own weaponskills increase its potency but party member weaponskills, spells and pet attacks do so as well.

I don't agree to changing that Wildfire in that way, it would probably make it a lot more inconsistent without adding more gameplay.

If they're gonna make MCH a phys ranged that's "selfish", I don't really see dps utility coming back to it.
I would rather have different kinds of utility added to it that doesn't specifically affect damage directly, like CCs, mitigation and resource refresh (or anything else really).

[Ultimatecalibur]

I don't agree to changing that Wildfire in that way, it would probably make it a lot more inconsistent without adding more gameplay.

Not necessarily. Cap it at about 6000 potency and it goes from the current "use it with Hypercharge" to "use it when you think your party can do 30 weaponskills/spells in 10s." 30 weaponskills/spells is slightly less than 4 per character during the duration which pretty much every comp can do on average.

I would rather have different kinds of utility added to it that doesn't specifically affect damage directly, like CCs, mitigation and resource refresh (or anything else really).

Resource refreshing would just mangle the current rotations rather than improving things, we almost have to much mitigation compared to how they currently design fights and CC such as Slow and Blind are going to meaningless in high end contents due to their potential to mess up the tightly timed fights.

[Jirah]

There are a couple ways to make "selfish" abilities that still add dps utility. For example, Wildfire could be upgraded so that not just your own weaponskills increase its potency but party member weaponskills, spells and pet attacks do so as well.

Wildfire is in dire need of a redesign but this is just benign, at best it would be boring as u pop it in every 120 sec to it already capped, assuming there is a limit, or struggle to find a optimal way to use it to do the most damage u can do with all 4/8/24/48 party members which would be a nightmare to balance without a cap. and just as inconsequential as what we have now if there is one.

[Raikai]

I would honestly want MCH to go back to their support DPS route. Hell, I want phys ranged to go back to their "Utility DPS" identity. Palisade, Refresh, Arm Graze, Leg Graze, Head Graze, Old Hypercharge/Foe's Requiem, Rend Mind, and Dismantle is a lot better reason to bring a physical ranged than a boring "1% Party Bonus DPS buff" that literally adds NO gameplay.

If they want to keep MCH as a "selfish DPS", they need to implement it as a Support-Oriented, "Selfish" Physical Ranged job with more utility on top of it. Which means, a job that has more personal DPS than its fellow phys ranged, and the identity of "utility based" like all phys ranged. Maybe more mitigation (Rend Mind/ Dismantle/ Palisade), maybe a resource refresh (Refresh or maybe a skill that refreshes job timers every 180 seconds), or maybe even have Peloton be active during combat. Utility doesn't have to mean "Trick Attack relabeled" either, it can even be a skill that helps keep uptime during mechanics, mitigate during heavy damage phases, or even CC that can affect the boss, like Slow and Blind.

Just something that isn't a +1% Party bonus and is also engaging would be nice.

I'm not mad at MCH staying as a "selfish" DPS, as it seems to be a niche occupied by at least 1 representative of each group: there's one in the casters as BLM, one in the melees as SAM, etc. Bards on the other hand, would actually benefit a lot for more of what you suggest, to have them out of the limbo they currently are, and being on par with Dancers for what is brought to the table.

[Payotz]

Not necessarily. Cap it at about 6000 potency and it goes from the current "use it with Hypercharge" to "use it when you think your party can do 30 weaponskills/spells in 10s." 30 weaponskills/spells is slightly less than 4 per character during the duration which pretty much every comp can do on average.

It will definitely not change its current use. It will still be aligned with Hypercharge as if you don't, you're gonna risk losing Wildfire Use (and thus potency). It's the same logic as Trick Attack with NIN.
It would be a lot better to turn Wildfire back into its +25% damage form if we're gonna be using it as a TA instead, as most jobs will produce high potency during bursts regardless of GCD count.

Resource refreshing would just mangle the current rotations rather than improving things, we almost have to much mitigation compared to how they currently design fights and CC such as Slow and Blind are going to meaningless in high end contents due to their potential to mess up the tightly timed fights.

It really wouldn't "mangle" rotations at all. In fact, it could possibly introduce more room for optimization or will help a lot in recovery situations just like old Refresh. Potentially being able to skip a Fire 1 for a BLM, giving 2k mana to casters and healers during recovery situations; There's a lot of ideas in that space that can work that will add much needed gameplay to physical ranged.

Slow and Blind and CC in general would be useful in add phases, like E8S(If only Heavy worked there), and mitigating one or two auto attacks between phases is a good usecase for Slow and Blind. Phase timings and what not will not be affected at all with CC, as no matter what, the boss will immediately cast the spell even if their blinded, or slowed. A bunch of good examples of this would be Titan EX and old Flash, where sometimes the blind can actually mitigate Mountain Buster, but it will never interrupt the phase change. All the phase timings are time based now, so whether or not the boss is dying, it will transition to the next phase immediately or force the party to finish the mechanic before falling over dead (E10S post VG2).

The only reason why it's meaningless in Savage and Ultimate is because most of the time, the adds and bosses are immune. They've shown that they can add mechanics like Interject in Savage Fights. We just need more varied forms of it.

I'm not mad at MCH staying as a "selfish" DPS, as it seems to be a niche occupied by at least 1 representative of each group: there's one in the casters as BLM, one in the melees as SAM, etc. Bards on the other hand, would actually benefit a lot for more of what you suggest, to have them out of the limbo they currently are, and being on par with Dancers for what is brought to the table.

The main problem with that is that MCH has been touted as not having the DPS to actually be a true selfish DPS, and it doesn't have that dps due to the "mobility tax" and "utility tax" that the job supposedly brings; When in fact, it's surpassed by Dragoon and Red Mage, two jobs that also have their dps toned down due to utility tax. In my opinion, MCH (and physical ranged as a whole) needs to bring back the utility that was taken from them and add more utility on top of that to justify the low damage the whole role brings. I think utility and the gameplay that derives from that will compliment the snoozefest that is Shadowbringers MCH gameplay, and will add much needed complexity and depth to the job (which is a good thing imo).

I'm not disregarding the problem that is DNC stealing BRD's identity, not at all. It's a part of this big problem with the job design this expansion. The role itself needs to get back to its utility dps identity from its current "DPS, but easier" identity.

[Shyle]

I just returned after a long break, I always liked the idea of the Machinist when it first came out, but wasn't a fan of the RNG based gameplay on it's initial launch. Now I'm playing it again and enjoy the gameplay/aesthetics of the class, though I do have to agree that the base combo (1-2-3) needs a little expanding with separate finishers (as mentioned before).

Maybe instead of spreadshot/crossbow for aoe, the machinist (I don't know the lore/class prior to ffxiv, so forgive my ignorance on the class history) uses grenades (or something to that effect) for AOE, like a basic grenade (1) that does burst phys. aoe dmg, links into a firebomb that does fire aoe dot dmg (maybe low to med. potency but also places a +% dmg taken debuff on the target(s)), and use flamethrower as the heat gauge aoe burn.
Another MMO with a similar class (in style) is in Swtor, the Smuggler uses a hand held blaster, and grenades and it's a decently satisfying gameplay loop. I believe one cool gimmick the class had was throwing a sticky grenade that could be detonated by a follow up shot from the blaster. Could be interesting to have something along those lines somehow.

But I also agree that the role of the class should step away from any form of "support" role, bard and dancer have those pretty locked up, boost the dmg on MCH a lil bit to maybe compete a bit better vs the higher tiers.

[Rymi64]

I just returned after a long break, I always liked the idea of the Machinist when it first came out, but wasn't a fan of the RNG based gameplay on it's initial launch. Now I'm playing it again and enjoy the gameplay/aesthetics of the class, though I do have to agree that the base combo (1-2-3) needs a little expanding with separate finishers (as mentioned before).

Maybe instead of spreadshot/crossbow for aoe, the machinist (I don't know the lore/class prior to ffxiv, so forgive my ignorance on the class history) uses grenades (or something to that effect) for AOE, like a basic grenade (1) that does burst phys. aoe dmg, links into a firebomb that does fire aoe dot dmg (maybe low to med. potency but also places a +% dmg taken debuff on the target(s)), and use flamethrower as the heat gauge aoe burn.
Another MMO with a similar class (in style) is in Swtor, the Smuggler uses a hand held blaster, and grenades and it's a decently satisfying gameplay loop. I believe one cool gimmick the class had was throwing a sticky grenade that could be detonated by a follow up shot from the blaster. Could be interesting to have something along those lines somehow.

But I also agree that the role of the class should step away from any form of "support" role, bard and dancer have those pretty locked up, boost the dmg on MCH a lil bit to maybe compete a bit better vs the higher tiers.

Funny thing about the granade thing.....it had an aoe skill that was a granade (Grando shot) but they got rid of it and kept spread shot. Same case with bards Wide volley. I guess they wanted to get rid of the circle aoes for them for some reason even though they were better and had cooler animations -.-. (Also the sticky granade thing is kinda just wild fire in a sense)

Mch only has one support role skill (tactician) and i dont count the role actions since majority of them help in solo play more than party play, so it already isn't really much of a support (not like anyone uses the damn damage reduction abilities anyways). So they could still up the damage of the job while keeping the one support ability they have since they are supposed to be the "selfish phy range" job. It always confuses me when people say they should step away from it when it barely has any.

[Jirah]

There are a couple ways to make "selfish" abilities that still add dps utility. For example, Wildfire could be upgraded so that not just your own weaponskills increase its potency but party member weaponskills, spells and pet attacks do so as well.

I don’t like this idea either, wildfire issue isn’t because it is weak, it’s not impactful. The idea to have a skill work like a group WF sounds like a nightmare to align or be so simple that it makes little difference and have the same lack of impact issues ordinary WF had

[Cabalabob]

Change hypercharge to give us 5 heat canisters that we can spend on heat blast. Change wildfire to have 6 charges that decrease every time you use a weaponskill and it explodes once it reaches 0. To lessen ping issues and remove the issue of them being wasted if the boss jumps entirely.

Double the potency of gauss round and ricochet but make them share a recast timer. Makes it so gauss is for single target and Rico is for AoE so we don’t have to spam both and removes the need to double weave basically every GCD.

Untie bioblaster from drills recast and instead tie it to air anchor, make it generate 20 battery. Lower the duration of flamethrower from 10 seconds to 5 seconds, double the potency and make it generate 10 heat per tic for 50 for the full duration tie the recast to drill. Make auto crossbow reset Rico and gauss the same as heat blast. Add bishop auto turret back to the game as an AoE battery spender and have it upgrade to automaton king, give him one of those spinny arms like the robots in azys lla. Basically makes the AoE rotation fall more in line with the single target rotation and makes every part of the AoE kit feel like it’s doing something useful.

Maybe have something AoE to tie wildfires recast to but I’m not so invested in the idea to come up with anything. Maybe wildfire is better left alone so we don’t feel like we need to use it outside of single targets.

[CKNovel]

On another news, that 1K gap is back between ranged and all other jobs.
This isn't the main topic, so I'll stop there about this topic.

On other hand, I'd like to try to resume what popular opinions about MCH are:
-Overrall, the new visuals brought with ShB are appreciated. However, previous animations such as 1-2-3 combo feels old and out of place. 1-2-3 combo is also redondant gameplay wise.
-There is a high demand on changing the way Hypercharge works, especially changing it like Perfect Balance and Bunshin. (5 charges to freely spend into heatblast)
-Wildfire remains a touchy subject, it's not impactfull in any way. Doesn't lives up to its damage, doesn't feels impactfull in the rotation. And MCH is often represented with this skill, from japanese gachapon to the Job Action trailer.
-Not a popular opinion, but there's been mentions about Flamethrower here and there, mainly that it feels like disconnected of all the MCH kit.

Overrall, the MCH rotation feels empty due to shared cooldown. The job felt more designed for dungeons than any other content. The rework was appreciated but removed far too much actions or made some irrelevant leading to this emptiness. The lack of interaction with the Automaton Queen is also something to be pointed out.

That is all important about the current MCH DPS rotation, I believe.
As for the ranged role itself, it's not the current topic, but the lack of support ability outside of rDPS is also lackluster.
I believe this topic should be adressed later, I think after the 8th week since release will be a good time, we should have the final numbers for this expansion. I truly doubt we'll see any changes or that the next Ultimate will be meaningul when it'll come to ranged balance.