Quote Originally Posted by Archwizard View Post
The problem is that designing any high APM job is going to be punishing to high ping players -- you cannot eat your cake AND still have it too.
Not really, no. Actions per minute has nothing to do with it. The sole factor there is GCD-in-animations-time, much like the case with setting a good duration for a skill not to feel overly ping-punishing.

Again, though, without XIV's coding costing roundtrip ping atop the .5s animation lock, Overheated's 1.5 second GCDs would be enough to support double-weaving. (See FFXIVAlexander with effective ping set to 0; it can double-weave a Heat Blast GCD.)

I'm all for OP's suggestion to reduce button bloat, but I think trying to make MCH more "ping friendly" might be overstepping a bit, inflating a simple QoL suggestion into a full rework.
That depends entirely on your view of what constitutes a "full" rework. Was Delirium "fully" reworked when it was put on stacks, instead of just getting scaled down to a 5s duration to fit its new 60s CD? Was that change, IR's, Bunshin's, and Requiescat's likewise "overstepping". Should new SMN have gotten a brief duration in which to cast its summon-based spells instead of stacks?

Ultimately it's just a matter of which is more fun for the most players. Durations give urgency, often at little frustration so long as they're not particularly susceptible to ping and are both well past a given GCD threshold at normal SkS and far enough away from their next GCD tier as not to encourage reaching it and thereby making it tight again. Personally, I prefer that for many skills, including even Blood Weapon (i.e., giving it 12s duration [effectively just under 11.5s], still 5 hits, but far more comfortable, over giving 5 stacks of effect). But, stacks come with added flexibility that would well suit MCH's theme, kit, and button-flow (especially since its unavoidable 1-2-3 combo still needlessly uses 3 separate keys and they are not replaced by Heat Blast).