Adjustments to MCH design without reworking from scratch

[CKNovel]

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;

Half agree there. Don't we have enough AoE exclusive buttons? On the opposite, actions like Bio-Blaster or Auto Cross Bow are mostly absent when there is a single target.
Wildfire needs to go or to be heavily reworked. That goes without saying, that cooldown is a delayed 1200 potency.

About the tools fantasy, big agree. I really, really hope they rework flamethrower/add Chainsaw that replaces your 1-2-3 by new buttons through a cooldown but without having to follow 1-2-3.
For example using Flamethrower would put you in a "Flamethrower stance" for 10, 15s. Split shot would be replaced with a stronger single target GCD, slug shot by a GCD applying a short dot to the targets, clean shot by an AoE gcd.
Same would go for Chainsaw but at Melee ranged. I just hope we don't get Chainsaw but it's glued to the Automaton Queen.
Talking about the AQ, I don't think we need an AoE version, a cooldown that consumes like 20 Battery to deal AoE damage would do the trick but we'd fall again in the actions unused against a single target.

SB MCH wasn't bad, it was simply poorly executed.
Overheat tied to Flamethrower, the ammos "Wait 30s before the pull", the Auto turret you used to not care about but suddenly have to care about, most of the gameplay relying on Wildfire. It was a bunch of bad ideas.
I have a big wishlist for EW, but considering the recent reworks and 70 to 80, my expectations are very, very low.

[Jirah]

"Wait 30s before the pull", the Auto turret you used to not care about but suddenly have to care about, most of the gameplay relying on Wildfire. It was a bunch of bad ideas.
I have a big wishlist for EW, but considering the recent reworks and 70 to 80, my expectations are very, very low.

wait 30 seconds? was i doing MCH wrong this whole time? u never waited 30 seconds u needed to do hot shot first and u didnt want to waste ammo on it as Hot Shot was a passive buff u needed to upkeep but it absorbed ammo for some reason.

also I respectfully disagree on wildfire being MCh core a bad thing..yes ping issues but SHB didnt solve that so its still a thing even to this day, but it wasnt a bad core to have, akin to raging strikes or Devilment it was fine could use a few adjusting here and there and certainly do not think SHB solved this by making WF a literal afterthought on the verge of being removed. Beyond it all Wildfire needs to be completely redone, maybe even be the missing link to turrets somehow which dont fare much better either

also also MCH technically has alot of aoes they just dont have any spice, the only link is the spread and auto heat phase and id like to think FF14 has outgrown its need to spam somthing 10 times to spam somthing another 5 times. Aoe needs a redo too but idk very effy about new aoe options if itll just add to the clutter which MCH has in spades despite its low skill count

[Kabooa]

was i doing MCH wrong this whole time?

Probably.

There were 2 ammo and 3 ammo openers as standard, but Mach wasn't the only one who had pre-fight set up.

[Jirah]

Probably.

There were 2 ammo and 3 ammo openers as standard, but Mach wasn't the only one who had pre-fight set up.

I dont recall ever doing it like this but MCH back then wasnt as concrete lack of better terms. Id do Hypercharge Hot Shot Gauss Reload Split Slug then FT to begin the OH phase and use my last bullet to do Split to have 2 procs. Always did it this way and wasnt aware of other ways until the ladder half of savage and definitly never heard of people actively waiting for reload to reset to have free ammo but i guess thats to be expected akin to AST

[Cabalabob]

I dont recall ever doing it like this but MCH back then wasnt as concrete lack of better terms. Id do Hypercharge Hot Shot Gauss Reload Split Slug then FT to begin the OH phase and use my last bullet to do Split to have 2 procs. Always did it this way and wasnt aware of other ways until the ladder half of savage and definitly never heard of people actively waiting for reload to reset to have free ammo but i guess thats to be expected akin to AST

There was the 3 ammo opener which was generally what you’d use with PUGs or in dungeons and is likely what you used. It would go hot shot > reload > split > slug > split > then into your burst.

But for high end content and with pre-made groups you’d use the 2 ammo opener which involved using reload pre-pull then waiting 30 seconds for it to come off CD. Then you’d go hot shot > quick reload > split > slug > split > burst. Then in your burst phase you’d have 3 extra ammo to play with and by the time you got through that ammo quick reload was back off CD to be used like normal. It gave you a big boost for your opening wildfire thanks both to the increased potency from ammo and the consistent procs on the rest of your burst window.

[CKNovel]

wait 30 seconds? was i doing MCH wrong this whole time? u never waited 30 seconds u needed to do hot shot first and u didnt want to waste ammo on it as Hot Shot was a passive buff u needed to upkeep but it absorbed ammo for some reason.

also I respectfully disagree on wildfire being MCh core a bad thing..yes ping issues but SHB didnt solve that so its still a thing even to this day, but it wasnt a bad core to have, akin to raging strikes or Devilment it was fine could use a few adjusting here and there and certainly do not think SHB solved this by making WF a literal afterthought on the verge of being removed. Beyond it all Wildfire needs to be completely redone, maybe even be the missing link to turrets somehow which dont fare much better either

Yeah, there was multiple openers. I remember, at every wipe, having to reload, put on barrel, place turret... Hated those times. I don't remember the exact opener but you had to start with 3 ammos.
Hypercharge pre-pull, Hotshot+GR, Split shot, Slug shot+reload (Clean shot prepared), then Flamethrower. Break FT at OH with Split shot, WF+Reassemble then classic 3-2-3 with 2 heatblast and Overload.

Wildfire as the core wasn't a bad thing, not in HW. But in SB it was always the same wildfire, you had nothing to do between each wildfire except replacing turret and care about the heat gauge.
Gameplay was Wildfire -> play with proc -> Wildfire -> play with proc -> loop. With of course caring about the auto-turret.

[Jirah]

Wildfire as the core wasn't a bad thing, not in HW. But in SB it was always the same wildfire, you had nothing to do between each wildfire except replacing turret and care about the heat gauge.
Gameplay was Wildfire -> play with proc -> Wildfire -> play with proc -> loop. With of course caring about the auto-turret.

I sincerely think what we have instead isnt better. SB You had to place ur turret, upkeep Hotshot, Manage heat to avoid premature overheating with BS or "Cooldown" and while also keeping up ammo to have a optimized procs for wildfire. When the phase is over u still have to keep a eye on ur turruet lockout among everything else it wasnt just 1-2-3 and even then it had fluidity

SHb is literally just 1-2-3 all the time forever and for always, Drill is Gauss round but with more numbers and pomp and i aint complaining in this context besides the fact its a GCD AA is just drill with double the CD, Wildfire went form being core to being so offhanded that its hardly notable in MCH kit a far cry from SB. ur charges are rarley on since unless ur heat blasting the 30 sec CD isnt common and ur obligated to spam em without any how or when. due to this MCH has no core or heart that the whole kit gravitates toward leaving it feeling hollow. Before anything Wildfire must be redesigned, as radical as i am i know im not in the minority for that at the very least

[CKNovel]

I sincerely think what we have instead isnt better. SB You had to place ur turret, upkeep Hotshot, Manage heat to avoid premature overheating with BS or "Cooldown" and while also keeping up ammo to have a optimized procs for wildfire. When the phase is over u still have to keep a eye on ur turruet lockout among everything else it wasnt just 1-2-3 and even then it had fluidity

SHb is literally just 1-2-3 all the time forever and for always, Drill is Gauss round but with more numbers and pomp and i aint complaining in this context besides the fact its a GCD AA is just drill with double the CD, Wildfire went form being core to being so offhanded that its hardly notable in MCH kit a far cry from SB. ur charges are rarley on since unless ur heat blasting the 30 sec CD isnt common and ur obligated to spam em without any how or when. due to this MCH has no core or heart that the whole kit gravitates toward leaving it feeling hollow. Before anything Wildfire must be redesigned, as radical as i am i know im not in the minority for that at the very least

Exactly, ShB is playing with 123 and heat until next "machinery", that's the whole purpose of all those posts.
It's not exactly better, it's just respecting 2 things out of 3 MCH asked for. A button to overheat and less emphasis on Wildfire. Both went horribly wrong, resulting in Hypercharge spam and Wildfire being one of the worst cooldown in the game, flamethrower being right next to it.

Drill and AA are not exactly gauss, they're GCDs and if they were oGCDs nothing would work anymore and MCH rotation would just become a "Get to 50, spend heat" everytime. No interest in holding 50 heat unless the boss is about to fly away. We need more things to care about when Drill and AA aren't available, needs more things that aren't tied to heat. And a much, much better wildfire or something to replace it.

[Jirah]

Drill and AA are not exactly gauss, they're GCDs and if they were oGCDs nothing would work anymore and MCH rotation would just become a "Get to 50, spend heat" everytime. No interest in holding 50 heat unless the boss is about to fly away. We need more things to care about when Drill and AA aren't available, needs more things that aren't tied to heat. And a much, much better wildfire or something to replace it.

Due to the confines of ogcd being abilities and not weaponskills i agree, but only in that context. Gauss wasn't a 100% equivalent to drill but they played similar roles diversifying the rotation and not being heat based. Gauss changed for the charge system. Again id argue Drill and AA dont have any depth what so ever and right now "Get to 50 spend heat" is all MCH is and if they remove both sure it would be more boring but would play the same with slightly shorter intervals for heat by like 2 seconds. They dont add much to the kit or perhaps im either undethinking its design but i almost never think about these two during fights and DPS seems to be unwavering