Adjustments to MCH design without reworking from scratch

[Jirah]

Like watching a doctor argue with someone whose entire knowledge of medicine comes from holistic youtube videos.

implying what?

[Payotz]

Disclaimer: I really don't like ShB MCH. I would like the devs to revert it back to SB MCH and go from there but that's probably not gonna happen.
Also it's 1am here so I may sound like I'm high.
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=Remove 1/2 OGCD=
We dont need 2 of these fashioned to be 6 as it just pads down the job have ricochet and Gauss be linked like Bio and Drill.. speaking of

Nah. Rapid Fire is pretty much the only thing that separates MCH from other ranged physicals. I'd rather have them keep the 1.5 GCD + OGCD spam gameplay despite it actually exaggerating the ping issues.
I'd like to believe that Square has enough resources to actually establish datacenters around the region rather than have them all be stuck in one place. I don't want job design to be sacrificed just because they're trying to save money.

But if they really can't do it, I'd rather have them implement either a 5 charge Hypercharge, or implement a "soft cap/hard cap" where the charges stop auto auto generating when it hits 3, but Heatblast can push it over to 5 charges. Once the charges fall below 3, then it can start regenerating again. If the charges fall below 3 and the timer is at half, then the cooldown starts counting down from half of the timer.

Honestly though. I'd rather have them give back procs and old Rapidfire back rather than spam Heat Blast, but that's just me. (Revert MCH cough)

=Remove bio and drill=
these are very lateral skills that offer nothing to the gameplay but to slow ur rotation, perhaps its best to just off them and have AA be the definitive reassemble patsy. Drill may possible exist as a ogcd but MCH has enough of those. Readjust potency and Reassemble to closely match AA...but if AA and reassemble are so closely matched why bother having reassemble? perhaps more can be done but i dont wanna trim MCH this far

I respectfully disagree. Drill/Bio are tools for multi target fights like TEA, and for fights with adds like E4S, E8S and TEA. Drill's existence solves a lot of "problems" the job had; It gives the job a low commitment burst option that's not Wildfire for mechanics such as TEA Dolls, E4S Gaols, E8S adds(You don't have to hope to crit or waste a Wildfire to kill adds anymore), It diversifies damage and doesn't make it so that the job relies on ONLY Wildfire for damage (which a lot of people complained, I personally liked it), and it adds more "Machinist" elements to the job fantasy and makes it lean more towards MCH rather than Gunner.

Drill/Bio is a simple, non-gimmicky button that adds a lot of benefits to the job and raid design of the game as a whole.

=Flamethrower gives heat=

I agree with this one. If anything, FT should also have more synergy with Bioblaster.
Have FT put the old PvP DoT stacks on enemies affected by BioBlaster DoT.
It also gives a job fantasy of fighting them with chemical weapons and setting them on fire.

=Remove/adjust Spread/Auto=
spamming spread just to spam a slighlty faster version of spread is why MCH aoe game is the weakest. Either have a trait that upgrades it or remove it as it doesnt really add vigor to aoeing or just overhaul MCH aoe kit and do away with false speed heat. add ricochet regen in there too to match Gauss regen

I respectfully disagree. Again, Rapid Fire GCDs is part of MCH's job identity, so really the only problem that Auto Crossbow has is that it doesn't regenerate ricochet stacks.
It both serves as an AoE burst window and a good buffer between FlameThrower/Bio going off cooldown and Spread Shot spam.
It also adds to the job fantasy of a MCH rather than a gunner, just like Drill.

Let me add a couple of my own to the mix:

Make Queen Ranged or revert Queen back to Bishop/Rook Autoturrets:

I like the queen as a concept, but boy is it bad in execution. It has a lot of issues due to it being melee and it relying on Pet AI, including but not limited to:

It can't switch targets to what the user is currently attacking (Shoutout to E6S and TEA dolls BTW)
It gets stuck and bugs out in mechanics such as Uplift in E4S, and Teleports in E7S (Why do pets teleport tho?????)
Due to it being melee, it sometimes ghosts their auto attacks when the add moves too fast, making it completely unreliable.

It's a cool mechanic, but it's so obviously hampered down by the same issues SMN has that I believe that Rook is the better option, even though it's the lamer one.

Wildfire isn't satisfying

IMO, there's one major reason why Wildfire isn't that satisfying anymore and that's because there's really no other way to make use of a Wildfire other than press HeatBlast 5 times.One of the main reasons why I personally feel skillful whenever I execute Midfires and Openers is simply because I Press different GCDs and OGCDs in order to make use of a Wildfire , instead of 5 Heatblasts in a row. That's honestly pretty much it. To quote my favourite video, "Weaving four GCDs in a row makes you feel very skillful."

Case in point: NIN Trick Attack windows vs a current MCH wildfire window. NIN and MCH pretty much has the same general idea for a burst window. Pop a debuff on the boss, then do as much potency as you can before that debuff runs out. The only difference is that NIN does it by not spamming Bhava 5 times while spamming Jugulate and Mug but rather actually making use of their full kit, and thus playing NIN does make you feel very skillful (and yes there's skill expression in there).

I honestly don't know what the perfect solution to this problem is:

* Reverting MCH back to SB MCH is what I honestly prefer, but that's not what a lot of people want.

* Reverting Wildfire back into a "+25% damage in debuff duration" will basically force MCH to drop Drill and Anchor inside the Wildfire window, instantly deleting the alternate burst option the job has.

* We can probably rework MCH in that the Overheat and Rapidfire is a thing again, but only activated with Hypercharge. Activating Hypercharge will turn the GCD recast time of specific GCD actions to 1.5 seconds, and turn specific GCDs and OGCDs to their "Heated" Forms. Only Heated attacks counts for Wildfire damage, but this will make the ping a whole lot worse.

No Job/Role Identity

I've honestly said my piece in this thread and many others, but basically just add more utility back to the job/role. Make them do more mechanics or bait more mechanics.
To avoid being redundant, I'll just link this here

[Raikai]

At this rate I'm pretty satisfied on how MCH currently is, but I agree with Wildfire being such a boring moment.

As long as the job maintains its "Machinist/Gadgeteer" feel with the Tools, I wouldn't mind a Wildfire rework, as long as it is not ping restrictive as it once was.

The only thing that I defnitely abhor about the SB MCH design was the clunkiness (+RNGness) of the 1-2-3 combo and the Gauss Barrel pointless mechanic, which I'm glad they are gone for.

Flamethrower also defo deserves more love, I like the idea of it interacting with Bio Blaster's poison dot as well. I just don't know why you can't even face another direction with it... I presume, since is a thing that happens in many other similar skills without a clear reason, that must be a technical limitation or something.

[Jirah]

snip

tbh that was a joke rework than anything and i dont stand by it but the devs might have other plans, i only made it to make fun of the trend to dum things down personal opinions withstanding

[Jirah]

At this rate I'm pretty satisfied on how MCH currently is, but I agree with Wildfire being such a boring moment.

As long as the job maintains its "Machinist/Gadgeteer" feel with the Tools, I wouldn't mind a Wildfire rework, as long as it is not ping restrictive as it once was.

The only thing that I defnitely abhor about the SB MCH design was the clunkiness (+RNGness) of the 1-2-3 combo and the Gauss Barrel pointless mechanic, which I'm glad they are gone for.

its so bad DNC adopted it with thunderous applause and even less control 15/30 second interludes isnt a entirety and i with how many things SB did wrong im shocked this is still a gripe with Eld MCH as it was the least of its concerns unless they werent playing it correctly. If you noticed ranged arent supposed to have generic 1-2-3 rotations as it isnt melee and needs abit of finesse to stand out and this was MCH compromise only to be reduced by the same flawed crap they avoided not only but even being less complex than most tanks and all of the melees

tbh the tools (Air, Auto, Drill, Bio) really didnt add much to layer out MCH in a interesting way or impactful way. along with queen its pure style and no substance being the only link to MCH core gameplay loop is naught since wildfire is reduced to a beta weaker and less frequent Tsubame-gaeshi. Least Auto is linked to heat without literally its only benefit leaving skills like ricochet as lateral as flamethrower.

Gauss barrel was pointless to a fashion and wouldve been easier just to replace it with a trait at 52 since it really is a fragment of HW MCH, but was a much better gauge skill than what we have now the battery is a shackle to what we used to have free control over and heat is a remedial resource since it only is used for rapid fire which no longer exists on our rotation and trivializes the heated rotation, what used to be earned and savored, to smut thats mind-numbing in its ridiculousness. Im very passionate about MCH so i hope what they do EW breathes fresh air to MCH not stagnate it to even more pointless fodder and false sense of speed smothing out mechanics with ogcds

[Rymi64]

Wether the player likes it or not depends on opinion.
Some Driver prefer to manually change gear in their cars, other prefer automatic transmission.

This is kinda how it worked in 4.x and lemme tell you 5.x version of mch is way more interesting throughout instead of just for 10 seconds.

its so bad DNC adopted it with thunderous applause and even less control 15/30 second interludes isnt a entirety and i with how many things SB did wrong im shocked this is still a gripe with Eld MCH as it was the least of its concerns unless they werent playing it correctly. If you noticed ranged arent supposed to have generic 1-2-3 rotations as it isnt melee and needs abit of finesse to stand out and this was MCH compromise only to be reduced by the same flawed crap they avoided not only but even being less complex than most tanks and all of the melees

Dnc's version of it is more interesting than HW/SB MCH way of doing it. DNC If you miss the first proc you can still hit the other button instead of just hitting the same button again because you had bad RNG. The bullets plus rng three part combo wasn't that interesting of a mechanic in SB it was just there to get in the way.

tbh the tools (Air, Auto, Drill, Bio) really didnt add much to layer out MCH in a interesting way or impactful way. along with queen its pure style and no substance being the only link to MCH core gameplay loop is naught since wildfire is reduced to a beta weaker and less frequent Tsubame-gaeshi. Least Auto is linked to heat without literally its only benefit leaving skills like ricochet as lateral as flamethrower.

It did add a layer since now you have to make sure you don't delay your big damaging attacks with your rapid fire combo promoting you managing heat well since the only way to get rid of heat now is to use hypercharge. Air anchor just took the place of your every 60 seconds attack.

Gauss barrel was pointless to a fashion and wouldve been easier just to replace it with a trait at 52 since it really is a fragment of HW MCH, but was a much better gauge skill than what we have now the battery is a shackle to what we used to have free control over and heat is a remedial resource since it only is used for rapid fire which no longer exists on our rotation and trivializes the heated rotation, what used to be earned and savored, to smut thats mind-numbing in its ridiculousness. Im very passionate about MCH so i hope what they do EW breathes fresh air to MCH not stagnate it to even more pointless fodder and false sense of speed smothing out mechanics with ogcds

Battery added depth to our turret so now instead of set it and forget it you use it during high damage windows (Trick attack or every 60 seconds). Hypercharge became our rapid fire and essentially makes it so we are pressing rapid fire more frequently than before. And even in SB you were always in your heated rotation since barrel stabilizer was meant to bring you to 50 and heat blast was there to make sure you dont over cap before wild fire was up again so really heated rotation were never really earned or savored it just became your normal rotation if you were playing optimally.

SHB MCH is a way better incarnation than SB mch since it actually keeps you more engaged with you constantly going into rapid fire and having big hits that you can look forward to the entire rotation. This coming from someone who also enjoyed SB MCH it was not that good of a job in that expansion.

[Jirah]

\SNip

ok alot to take in here
Rico/Gauss isnt "rapid fire" rapid fire was removed so we can spam heat blast 5 bloody times instead its padding plain and simple 6 ogcds worth of padding no other job has because they have basic structure my rework thing was a gag but wouldnt mind loosing one and have the CD reduced if we MUST have it on. But due to having full stacks from the get go and only playing a role in MCH most restrictive phase with HB the best way to utilize them is to Spam! not speed

You say they need rapid fire but you want them to "Bunshin" heat blast? this would make the job even more mindless and unfun the only threat how ever small it is, is keeping up ur ogcd with ur one button wonder eliminating it for safer ping friendly Stacks would eliminate the only rapid fire thing MCH has.

ignoring the drill/bio argument as it could be fare more useful instead of being fodder, Ricochet is also a aoe, so is auto cross and flamethrower. St/aoe choices should belong to Gauss and rico and they arent gimmicky but they are in the same lane as RDM fleche or MNK tornado kick except RDM has alot more going on and doesnt hype it up as the one thing that makes the job fun and Tornado kick is a ogcd so it can flow evenly with its fists. remove drill to reassign AA to its role and the job is as samey as ever and wont change that drastically and can still have the link to bio if its so vital to 3 fights

MCH aoe is a incredibly small improvement to SB that being the case DNC and BRD has much better Aoe tools. DNC ST and Aoe rotations are the exact same which makes the job a bit boorish but makes the aoeing more layered, BRD having its own issues is pure madness in a good way with ballad and apex aswell as stuff like Shadowbite which encourages u to dot then blast with apex and rain or speed with paeon just needs to iron out a few of its loose screws, MCH is so far behind both of them that its remedial Auto being the same as Heat is a given but since FT doesnt generate heat and rico stacks dont generate and ur Bishop turret was removed so no aoes, and Bio being just as fragmented but more frequant. MCH more often than not will just have u spam spread like its SB again u need to do this 10 times before auto is active which lasts only 5 gcds. compared to literally every other dps in the game thats incredibly weak stuff

[Raikai]

its so bad DNC adopted it with thunderous applause and even less control 15/30 second interludes isnt a entirety and i with how many things SB did wrong im shocked this is still a gripe with Eld MCH as it was the least of its concerns unless they werent playing it correctly. If you noticed ranged arent supposed to have generic 1-2-3 rotations as it isnt melee and needs abit of finesse to stand out and this was MCH compromise only to be reduced by the same flawed crap they avoided not only but even being less complex than most tanks and all of the melees

tbh the tools (Air, Auto, Drill, Bio) really didnt add much to layer out MCH in a interesting way or impactful way. along with queen its pure style and no substance being the only link to MCH core gameplay loop is naught since wildfire is reduced to a beta weaker and less frequent Tsubame-gaeshi. Least Auto is linked to heat without literally its only benefit leaving skills like ricochet as lateral as flamethrower.

Gauss barrel was pointless to a fashion and wouldve been easier just to replace it with a trait at 52 since it really is a fragment of HW MCH, but was a much better gauge skill than what we have now the battery is a shackle to what we used to have free control over and heat is a remedial resource since it only is used for rapid fire which no longer exists on our rotation and trivializes the heated rotation, what used to be earned and savored, to smut thats mind-numbing in its ridiculousness. Im very passionate about MCH so i hope what they do EW breathes fresh air to MCH not stagnate it to even more pointless fodder and false sense of speed smothing out mechanics with ogcds

Hm, while I find DNC rng quite annoying, isn't nearly as what SB MCH was. And when I sy 1-2-3 combo I mean the "filler", I'm fully aware of how it actually worked. I just think the filler combo isn't exactly a good place to add such level of randomness because it's basically where you spend most of your time at.

When I speak on the Tools, I surely mean more like the "fantasy" of using them rather than just the actual gameplay behind it. I know the implementation is quite "monotonous" as well, since they're basically just damaging abilities without any real interaction with a lot of stuff - but at least they're there.

I'm sorry to point out this, but your reply was really hard to read without commas :/

[Jirah]

Hm, while I find DNC rng quite annoying, isn't nearly as what SB MCH was. And when I sy 1-2-3 combo I mean the "filler", I'm fully aware of how it actually worked. I just think the filler combo isn't exactly a good place to add such level of randomness because it's basically where you spend most of your time at.

When I speak on the Tools, I surely mean more like the "fantasy" of using them rather than just the actual gameplay behind it. I know the implementation is quite "monotonous" as well, since they're basically just damaging abilities without any real interaction with a lot of stuff - but at least they're there.

I'm sorry to point out this, but your reply was really hard to read without commas :/

My bad on the comment thing lol

but i also argue a incredibly basic 1-2-3 isnt the best substitute no matter how many ogcd gcd they throw at you. Yea the randomness in its basic combo wouldnt normally work but with how often you have ammo it should be a non issue. Ive only spammed the same skill maybe 3 times the most waiting for ammo..along side Guass and Cooldown and Hot shot was well kept. SB had alot of things to be looking out for which worked well with its ammo based rotation. BRD back then had a similar font with bloodletter (Gauss round) Heavy shot (Split Shot) and Straight arrow (Hot shot) comparative speaking they both were unique but borrowing eachothers standard "rotations" with BRD lacking a 1-2-3 and getting dots.

among all this strife id love to see what would happen if SE didnt abandon its ammo and heat gauges, the tools wouldve benefited MCH kit with much needed aoe options and the best QoL of all, HYpercharge no longer needing to FT for heat. Battery no longer being a shackle, Air anchor giving MCH us the old Hot Shot buff. Provided some heavy adjustments it wouldve been great...it still can be great but MCH regardless what route its gonna take with even more removals, being clunky again, or worse nothing at all, I just hope it improves upon SHB. The very last thing i want and i hope MCH mains old and new want, is for the job to barley budge a inch.

[Raikai]

HYpercharge no longer needing to FT for heat.

Now that you mentioned this, I think actually it was one of the worst aspects of SB MCH for me. I'm all for jobs that reward clever usage and timing of skills, but the whole "Clip FT at 1 tick" (or something like that if I remember correctly) promoted a really abysmal "optimized" play.

At this rate, my expectations for EW's MCH are:
- Keeping up with the Tools "fantasy" - finally the job feels like a true Machinist and not just an acrobatic gunner (which would totally warrant its own job tbh);
- Make the AoE rotations more interesting;
- Rework Wildfire (as long as it's not extremely punishing for people without the perfect ping);
- An AoE version of battery spender: A new robot, or a tool that consumes battery instead... anything;