Machinist needs help.

[CKNovel]

So I tried both EX on MCH and as the title says, Machinist needs help.

Flamethrower is in a terrible gray area, it's sometimes barely worth using and other times in barely not worth.
It kept its tick fishing, nothing changed about it, just potencies. I'm not pressing the button due to how confusing it is as to when it's worth or not.
Shotgun until 50 heat? Use FT if at 0 heat and until BB is available?
Wildfire remains the same and makes the rotation rigid, nothing changed about it.
Drill, AA, Buzzsaw are good GCDs nothing to change about them, they work.

Heat management is much more rigid, if a skill needed a stack it was Barrel Stabilizer, not Reassemble.
Reassemble only shines when there is downtime, meaning it's the only case where you can charge the second charge.

Now the worst change is unsurprisingly the Automaton Queen. The extra finisher is literally an anti-QoL.
There is now more problems on the AQ than before:

1) The queen is terrible against multiple targets, despite tagging another target the queen can rush on a random one when the one she focus is dead/untargetable. This is annoying when there is a lot of adds but one of them takes reduced damages.
2) When the queen kills a target with its first finisher, it won't seek a new target for the second finisher, it will straight up shutdown. This is quite annoying as the lack of control on the Queen can't allow the player to switch target, especially during a phase with a lot of weak adds.
3) Queen Overdrive is now even longer to fully trigger. Arm punch animation, Pile Bunker animation, Crowned collider animation, it will need to go through all of these to fully profit from the Queen's finisher.

The Automaton Queen just had so much problem and this new finisher just adds even more. It was already annoying to go around these limitations, but it is now even worse when it wasn't fun in the beginning.
Rather than expanding MCH depths, those new actions/traits just expanded its problems.

Oh and Enhanced Tactician is a massive disappointment, that trait could've at least added increased healing received or a shield.

[CKNovel]

Update since we started to gather data.
This is mostly preliminary and pre-balance patch

So far, MCH is among the last, if not the last DPS.
Below BRD and around DNC/SMN.

Needless to say, this is terrible balancing. MCH has no utility beyond Tactician, no extra mobility beyond its legs.
SMN and BLM are now more mobile than ever, RDM and DNC now get extra mitigation tools.

What MCH got? A more than ever clunky Automaton Queen, a more rigid heat management thanks to Chainsaw.
I don't think 6.1 will fix MCH, even if we can get damage adjusments. The job utility is among the lowest, it literally brings nothing to the party.

[LordMetal7]

More examples of a True Gunner class that FF14 needs XD

Laguna need me to say more? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v92Donqd_xQ

Diffrent one for idea, yes yoshi p look at the videos XD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxJKHRKPZPc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1u3zCkhpVQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWCKBFWS4NI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85aK6V44F9I


Or even a dual pistol works for a 4th range lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xKWhumut0Y

Again yes machinist just needs a little more but better a 4th new range lol :P

[CKNovel]

More examples of a True Gunner class that FF14 needs XD

I admire your stuborness, but please remind yourself this is a topic about current Machinist.
The main goal of this topic is to improve on the current iteration and fix the current tools.

If you want to suggest a complete new job or to rework Machinist in that way, please go to relevant topics.

[Lexis]

Disclaimer: I'm an average player (which, for most on the forums, probably translates to Casual player). I don't do savage raids or Extreme Trials and find some EW boss fights challenging, so take this for what it's worth:

I do enjoy the current state of Machinist gameplay wise. Their kit feels good and satisfying to use, I appreciate the extra AoE tool being added to our arsenal since we have no AoE combo like most other DPS classes and the extra reassemble charge is quite nice as I no longer have to feel bad for sitting on it while waiting for Drill or Air Anchor to come off CD.

With that said, if Machinist is reportedly near the bottom of the DPS charts, then that is indeed concerning given we're a Pure DPS/Very Limited Utility class (We do get Peloton, which is always appreciated in dungeons, but so do Bards and Dancers). I did notice I seemed to struggle keeping up with other DPS in trials but I had chalked it off as me still learning a fight everyone else apparently figured out already.

As for Tactician, I appreciate the CD reduction but it still ends up on CD for every other unavoidable AoE damage so I'm not sure it's really much of an improvement? I'd love to see the CD further reduced to 60 seconds, or perhaps a little something added to it, like a DPS buff for the duration? Then you get to make the call whether to use it as a mitigation or DPS tool (which would give further meaning to the name 'Tactician').

In any case, keep up the good fight, my fellow Machinist main!

EDIT: Oh, I forgot about Flamethrower. With the Scattergun Upgrade... do I even bother anymore? I mostly just use it when everything is on cooldown and I need to scratch my nose or something <.< Maybe buff its damage? Or add an armor debuff to the affected mobs for its duration? I don't know, but I like the idea of Flamethrower and would love for it to be a little less... useless.

[Jirah]

snip.

This is the first I’ve heard about MCH being slow on the DPS charts and I saw “HA” and I also say as someone doing casual content why is this even a remote concern? This should be as irrelevant to you as BiS but I digress.

Also, being a MCH main no longer, you didn’t mention anything about it’s issues, it’s poor aoe integration, it’s ping reliance, lateral skills, the fact it got a skill that the player itself doesn’t even use in Crown collider, the fact it only got 1 new skill where it’s cousins got better treatment in radiant finale, Blast arrow, Star dance, and Fan dance IV ect. The fact wildfire is a joke of a skill, the pointless restriction of Heat spam, the gluttonous mindnumbing spamming. I feel a lot more can be said tbh. But my Fire for the job died as I’m trying to defend the other jobs that may yet live. As MCH is my last priority getting it to 90 and looking forward to its 1 skill

[Jirah]

I fail to see the entire point of Crown as a skill, it’s completely automatic as a concept due to turrets having no control, and makes the Queen screw up even more. They seriously need to remove it or rewrite turrets to be less frustrating

[AvenoMatt]

Haven't leveled mch to 90 yet but i was personally disappointed with what mch was given this expansion. First wanna say this Chainsaw is fine. It fits in with the rest of mch big hitter gcds, Drill every 20s, Air Anchor 40s and now Chainsaw 60s. My issue are as listed.
- Lack of utility. Now i know every job doesn't need utility but original mch was built around it and the fact that they have stripped mch of all it utility or made what utility it had role actions for all ranged is annoying. Now I have suggested different way to add utility before but honestly just give me back Dismantle. It's not much but I'd be happy.
-Wildfire. I don't think wildfire needs to be removed personally. I enjoy it and I like having to time it's execution right if I want to make sure I get all my 6 hits in. My issue is how insignificant it feels. Dmg wise it's a not small it's 900 potency if you get all 6 hits, the issue is with for how long it's cd is it doesn't feel like the build up to it was worth it. Idk if raising the potency will help, if they should make it so that Ricochet and Gauss Round help with it's dmg, or even just giving a more visually satisfying animation.
- Lack of Battery usage. I personally would like to see more uses for Battery. Now Queen should be your main use for battery but i also want her to be the worst use for it. By that I mean we should have Battery spenders that require little battery like 10 or 20 that way we aren't cutting in to queen much, be more dps vs battery effective then queen, and have moderate cooldowns that way when they are up we should be using them over queen and when unavailable we default to using queen to spend our battery.
-Flamethrower. This feels bad to use most of the time cause of the priority other actions have over it that most of the time you don't use it. So to help with my previous issue they should make flamethrower a turret that either you choose where to place or it just drops where you stand and instead of shooting in a cone it could just spin in a circle or make a vortex of fire. This way in aoe it's has it place and you aren't having to wait for the right moment when everything else is unavailable to use. You just use it if it's up and you have the battery for it. It could also have a place with single targets then being something that could pack a punch but require little battery with it's only drawback being it's cooldown restricting it's usage.

[CKNovel]

I fail to see the entire point of Crown as a skill, it’s completely automatic as a concept due to turrets having no control, and makes the Queen screw up even more. They seriously need to remove it or rewrite turrets to be less frustrating

Makes the Queen finisher longer, therefore worse, for more damage.
The best solution is to upgrade Pile Bunker into Crown Collider. The AQ would remain a joke, but not a big as the current joke.

Snip, too long

Ranged DPS was a support DPS from ARR to SB. Now they are support DPS without the support aspect, Reaper has more support than Dancer with its broken heal.
Tactician is the only support skill but that's a joke to put it on 90s CD. I believe the reason behind that new CD is to not compare Tacticians to Magick Barrier or Expedient that has 10% reduction for 20 whole seconds on top of a sprint, this is what the traits improving Tacticians should've been. Or at least put it on a 60s CD cooldown, why RDM and SCH would have a new mitigation while ranged suffers a trait that isn't even worth a slot?

Wildfire is still a massive problem, every 2 minutes is will make your rotation far more rigid and forces your to lose heat on purpose to not delay Barrel Stabilizer and Wildfre.
IMO, Wildfire needs a heavy rework, it has ridiculously low damage and in the end, is just an empowered Hypercharge.

Both gauges are too similar, I'd rather have more heat spender due to how many space Hypercharges uses and clog the rotation.

I'll never say it enough, but any idea is better than the current Flamethrower that sounds like a weapon of destruction but feels like watering plants.


So far I haven't played a lot of MCH due to how barebone it feels and how frustrating the AQ is.
SQEX, for the love of puppies in the world, change how the AQ and Esteem chose their targets and make it clear.

[Sorzai]

MCH seems boring af to play, the only satisfying thing bout it is Reassemble + Drill. There is nothing fun about using hypercharge and wildfire, it doesn't give any satisfying BIG D Damage. Don't get me started on the Automaton Queen, that's the biggest BS useless crap ever and has never been any fun to use

So yes, Machinist needs work. I love the class, but hate the state it's in.