Machinist needs help.

[Jirah]

There is easy fix for this:
-Barrel stabilizer allowing a free Hypercharge rather than giving 50 heat.
-Wildfire and Barrel Stabilizer fused into one button -> Wildfire triggers Hypercharge for free.
-Remove Wildfire and change Barrel Stabilizer so it increases GCD potency under Hypercharge by a whooping 200 potency (In order to compensate for the loss of Wildfire)

Wildfire is an empowered Hypercharge, nothing more nothing else. There is no "Wildfire combo" anymore and the cooldown is now incredibly boring.

Be careful condensing skills for a job that already has so few to begin with. MCH has this awkward issue of fat aswell beyond charges and laterals. you can remove quite a lot from MCH kit and still have the main gameplay intact that’s how shallow and uneventful it is.

Wildfire adding 50 heat would completely eliminate the point of Stabilizer being the same CD and revising it as a attack buff with removing WF would also not compromise the kit, or what’s left of it anyways. Good suggestions overall so long as they add somthing ontop of it to compliment it. Like if this was the only change plus that “yet another” aoe skill MCH would continue to be the most unambitious job in the game

[Seraphor]

If you don't make mistakes and the boss has a correct uptime, you will end up in a trap at the second Wildfire.
You will have heat to spend but you won't be able to as Drill and Air Anchor are near and as soon those are used, it's now Wildfire that is a few seconds away and you can't use Barrel Stabilizer as you will overcap heat.

Barrel Stabilizer that used to be paired with Wildfire is now unsynchronized with it at the 2 minutes mark.

There is easy fix for this:
-Barrel stabilizer allowing a free Hypercharge rather than giving 50 heat.
-Wildfire and Barrel Stabilizer fused into one button -> Wildfire triggers Hypercharge for free.
-Remove Wildfire and change Barrel Stabilizer so it increases GCD potency under Hypercharge by a whooping 200 potency (In order to compensate for the loss of Wildfire)

Wildfire is an empowered Hypercharge, nothing more nothing else. There is no "Wildfire combo" anymore and the cooldown is now incredibly boring.

All of these would only serve to make Wildfire even more simple and boring.
At least you now have to be concerned about boss uptime, and if the boss is about to vanish, you need to hit Wildfire yourself to trigger it prematurely, instead of losing it entirely.
That's a mechanic in it's own right.

Also, I have absolutely no issue with Flamethrower at all. It's not useless, and you need to use it wisely, by correctly positioning yourself, and it comes with the potential cost of having to eat AoEs to keep it up.

In general, MCH is about correct timing, and making the right choices on the fly. Removing any of these lowers the skill ceiling, and would just make MCH even more braindead.
They should be adding to these skills, not taking away, to make them more interesting, not just scrapping them entirely.

For example. Flamethrower could apply a stackable burn debuff for each tick of damage it applies, and then the next weaponskill you use has it's potency increased by 2% per stack (up to 20%) and consumes those stacks. Kinda of like a mini AoE Wildfire with a slightly different mechanic.
Maybe then EW could add in a new AoE weaponskill that has it's own cooldown (or shares with Anchor) Noiseblaster, with which to spend this on.
This would also synergise well with Reassemble, which in AoE is currently best used on Spreadshot, due to the other AoE weaponskill simply being a dot.

[CKNovel]

I think you guys forgot a key element here:
Wildfire is already the bottom of the fun, it cannot go lower. Now it's boring and problematic, the fix would just make it boring.
Wildfire and Barrel Stabilizer are meant to be paired, it's obvious. But the fact is that they are never paired on constant uptime unless you want to lose heat or drill uses.

1:
At least you now have to be concerned about boss uptime, and if the boss is about to vanish, you need to hit Wildfire yourself to trigger it prematurely, instead of losing it entirely.
That's a mechanic in it's own right.

2:
Also, I have absolutely no issue with Flamethrower at all. It's not useless, and you need to use it wisely, by correctly positioning yourself, and it comes with the potential cost of having to eat AoEs to keep it up.

3:
In general, MCH is about correct timing, and making the right choices on the fly. Removing any of these lowers the skill ceiling, and would just make MCH even more braindead.
They should be adding to these skills, not taking away, to make them more interesting, not just scrapping them entirely.

4:
For example. Flamethrower could apply a stackable burn debuff for each tick of damage it applies, and then the next weaponskill you use has it's potency increased by 2% per stack (up to 20%) and consumes those stacks. Kinda of like a mini AoE Wildfire with a slightly different mechanic.

1- If the boss is about to vanish, it's better to delay Wildfire for when it reappears than triggering it at half power.
The reason for that is simple, your team also has 120s cooldown or 60s cooldown, Trick Attack for example. Imagine putting all those cooldowns and missing half of the raid burst. It's better to delay.

2- The problem with Flamethrower is that it's a dungeon skill first, then even in dungeon it's press and go get a coffee, don't touch your keyboard/gamepad.
Is this fun to you? The MCH has a nervous gameplay then it hits you with cookie clicker mechanic, aka wait.

3- No, MCH is about planning. To optimize heat and Drill usage. If you react to situations rather than being prepared to them, you have a lot to learn.

4- Doesn't fix the "Press and wait for 10 seconds" issue. On top of that, remaining immobile for 10 seconds is not possible in hard content. You'd see many flamethrower delayed to due respecting mechanics or conflict with tanks when it comes to silencing.
It's alright to have and share your ideas but try to think about what other issues it brings.

For example someone once shared their idea of ranged to need a minimum range to deal extra damage. A lot of people notified that it would get in conflict with low range heal such as AST star or WHM Cure III.

[Seraphor]

I have no problem with standing still for 10s to channel a turret skill. The alternative is Spreadshot spam.
It's just like Phantom Flurry, one of BLU's best spells.

And sure, it's just for Dungeons and Alliance Raids, because you generally don't AoE at all in hard content. So it's perfectly fine to have a channelled turret skill in casual content, and it even serves as a welcome break from the constant jackhammering of your keyboard/controller for some.
I enjoy the change of pace it brings to dungeon pulls, and that it mixes up your tempo. That's also why I like Ninja.

If you're only doing 'hard' content, then why would you be at all concerned with Flamethrower?
"Just delete the stuff I personally don't use" yeah... no.

[CKNovel]

If you're only doing 'hard' content, then why would you be at all concerned with Flamethrower?
"Just delete the stuff I personally don't use" yeah... no.

I play MCH in most content since HW, that's why I keep saying ShB MCH was designed for dungeons and not Raiding.
Even in Dungeons, it's not fun to press Flamethrower. And that's a problem with MCH about most buttons, Queen and Wildfire for example, press and forget, wait for their effects.
You cannot compare Phantom Flurry and Flamethrower, surely you can understand the major differences between the two?
FT is 10 seconds of nothing, Phantom Flurry is 5 seconds then interrupt with the final kick.

Quick lesson: There is something known as "tick fishing". It's not worth the trouble but basically you use Flamethrower before a boss is targetable again and you pray for a tick to connect before you hit your GCD.
It's not worth the trouble, again.

The initial problem is that MCH lacks buttons to press, this is why I care about Flamethrower being good and relevant in Hard content and dungeon/bozja content. Errr... Forget what I said, there is much better lost actions AoE in Bozja.
MCH has too much AoE and one of them is an emote that does damage. That's a fact, not an opinion. If you like its design, good for you. But I'm not the only one asking for a rework of this crappy ability.
There are many pages about complains about MCH you can find here and there.

[Jirah]

I have no problem with standing still for 10s to channel a turret skill. The alternative is Spreadshot spam.
It's just like Phantom Flurry, one of BLU's best spells.

And sure, it's just for Dungeons and Alliance Raids, because you generally don't AoE at all in hard content. So it's perfectly fine to have a channelled turret skill in casual content, and it even serves as a welcome break from the constant jackhammering of your keyboard/controller for some.
I enjoy the change of pace it brings to dungeon pulls, and that it mixes up your tempo. That's also why I like Ninja.

If you're only doing 'hard' content, then why would you be at all concerned with Flamethrower?
"Just delete the stuff I personally don't use" yeah... no.

I cannot stand how most MCH are this passive, idk what happened between 4.0 and 5.0 MCH mains but i remember their desires and wishes being somewhat logical and constructive and atleast had ambitious ideas. MCH has alot of pointless chaff, flamethrower being probably the most lateral example among others, it adds nothing to its kit and id much rather see it be useful and intuitive than forgettable and pointless

[Rymi64]

If I had it my way I would have gone back to hw iteration of mch and build from there, cast times and all. SB iteration even though I enjoyed it was a mess and shb is enjoyable but has some flaws. Honestly I could see using the shb heat and hyper charge to temporarily get rid of your cast times and reduce your main combo gcd to 1.5 like heat blast as an example.

Wild fire Honestly would feel nice if queen damage worked with it and damage your team mate does counted in some way. Flamethrower they could make it like the pvp iteration where it leaves a dot and you can interact with that dot with certain skills

[ReiganCross]

I cannot stand how most MCH are this passive, idk what happened between 4.0 and 5.0 MCH mains but i remember their desires and wishes being somewhat logical and constructive and atleast had ambitious ideas. MCH has alot of pointless chaff, flamethrower being probably the most lateral example among others, it adds nothing to its kit and id much rather see it be useful and intuitive than forgettable and pointless

I kind of want Flamethrower to do more DPS on an Area than the regular combo does in single target, and also fill up Heat Gauge (After all, FLAMEthrower.) I'm talking like 200~300 potency per second to deal damage as if you were throwing a combo with a Ricochet Weaved into every attack.
That would make people want to use it on goddamn Cooldown and it would make it useful even on bosses, which is 99% of Endgame since they seem to be phasing out Trash mobs out of... Everywhere. Just make it a part of the actual MCH kit, y'know?

[Kabooa]

I play MCH in most content since HW, that's why I keep saying ShB MCH was designed for dungeons and not Raiding.

Hard disagree.

Machinist feels awful in dungeons.

[Darkpaw]

Ahhh it’s almost like the good ole times of stormblood in this thread, when mch’s were truly well and screwed.

I doubt any criticism will be taken note of before 6.0, like with most reworks mch is half done. We wont see the full result of the mch rework until Endwalker. Mch definitely has it’s issues, but I want to see the rework finished before i start listing the myriad of issues.