Adjustments to MCH design without reworking from scratch

[Jirah]

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;

agreed again they adopted this tactic once again for DNC but DNC does it alot better with its nuke force and doing stuff, while ur about to burst for finish. What a concept. It was more one wish to have and while it was granted...it came at a cost with 70% of MCH kit wiped

"keeping up the tool fantasy" unless theyre removing skills i doubt this would be a issue but lets all stop begging for a separate gunner class and give MCH back its gunner elements im sorry but i just cant stand this mindset. Its like saying stop take away BRD arrows so we can have a ranger class or take away DRK magic attacks so we can have MAgic knight. We dont need to waste a critically limited job slot on somthing not only shallow but done before .

aoe battery skills wont make MCH any better unless they overhaul the turret system and i hope this isnt all we are getting but at the very least give us bishop back

[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

[Payotz]

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

I'm talking about the feel here. It's spammy, but it's Fast . A 1.5 GCD recast time and weaving an OGCD between that is probably the fastest burst window a game can actually offer.
It's not interesting for sure, but I addressed that in another spot in my post.

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.

It will not change anything, and I really only put that in there as a last resort fix to ping issues.
Heatblast will still have the same 1.5 GCD, and spamming Rico/Gauss Round between Heatblasts is still dps optimal due to how soft capping works.
The only thing that this will change is that it won't fuck over people if they clip their Heatblast due to animation lock (yes, the animation lock actually depends on latency), making it so that players won't be punished by something they can't control (ping).

I would still prefer actually putting servers in other regions to alleviate ping issues rather than changing jobs for it, but that's just me.

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

I honestly have a hard time understanding your point here.

Rico and GR, in its current state, exists to preserve the "Rapid Fire" identity of MCH. I wouldn't wanna remove them just because. Sure MCH doesn't have anything right now, but that doesn't mean we should remove things from it. That won't solve anything. In fact, I would argue that Rico and GR has a lot more nuance to it than Fleche and Contre Sixte, due to the interaction between those two and Heat Blast and the charge mechanic. (I.E, you can either save most of the charges for raid buffs but you have to make sure to use them all before you hyper charge).

Eliminating a 700 potency 20 second button from the job that will severely limit the job's tools in dealing with adds and gaols. Think back to E8S add phase, where double electro adds spawn. A MCH can just Anchor and Drill both adds separately to soften them up or even just straight up kill them if they crit. Leave Drill/Bio alone, they're fine as it is, and will actually allow raid designers to add more multi-target mini dps checks for fights.

MCH aoe is a incredibly small improvement to SB that being the case DNC and BRD has much better Aoe tools.

I mean that's intended. BRD doesn't have an on demand burst, and neither does DNC.
BRD being good at multi target fights like TEA is a good niche that helps a lot with job identity.
MCH having on demand burst (Drill and Anchor) and having better single target dps is part of its good job identity.
DNC being good at multi add phases that gather together is arguably part of its job identity.

I don't agree that homogenizing one of the few areas where the ranged roles are different is a good idea, a job needs to have its pros and cons after all.

[Jirah]

I don't agree that homogenizing one of the few areas where the ranged roles are different is a good idea, a job needs to have its pros and cons after all.

Id rather do that if what we are "homogenzing" wasnt complex to begin with, aswell as fine tune whats available, MCH retaining what it is plus more is alot of padding as is unless they dont add anything but a aoe and a shallow upgrade which is the strongest possibility. This is purley a manner of perspective though as we have very different views on MCH. But MCH can do better than 6 ogcd and 2 gcds and call it "rapid" rather than being rapid like MNK or BRD after Arm's muse.

[Payotz]

Id rather do that if what we are "homogenzing" wasnt complex to begin with, aswell as fine tune whats available, MCH retaining what it is plus more is alot of padding as is unless they dont add anything but a aoe and a shallow upgrade which is the strongest possibility. This is purley a manner of perspective though as we have very different views on MCH. But MCH can do better than 6 ogcd and 2 gcds and call it "rapid" rather than being rapid like MNK or BRD after Arm's muse.

I honestly really disagree, and this is not just for MCH, but for the sake of BRD as well.
BRD being good at multi target should be kept. It's a major part of its gameplay and adds a lot of incentive to actually main multiple jobs within a subrole rather than one.
Yes, MCH can do better than its current state, but that doesn't mean we should destroy the base. If anything, they should build on it(or you know revert it *wink* *wink*).
The job is barebones enough as it is.

[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.

[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.