Machinist needs some reworking

[iiTzSeb]

I like to edit quotes to insult others because someone disagreed with me

Don't have time for you if all you're going to do is hurl passive aggressive insults.

I'm half in your boat, but think we should be asking for changes to rough spots in the MCH kits no matter how much we love it...

Yeah there's things that could do with adjusting like WF snapshotting like a DoT or Queen being an overglorified DoT that DOESN'T snapshot buffs like one or Flamethrower being extremely niche in application.

WF could definitely go for a potency adjustment, but not the charge thing. Even at 2.50 GCD you can easily fit 6 GCDs if you weave it on the 2nd weave slot, but they could extend it by an extra second to make that not a hard requirement for the full 6 GCDs and to compensate for high ping MCH players so they can get the 6 in as well because atm any MCH playing above 110 ping is never going to fit those 6 GCDs in and they'll just be doing objectively worse for something they CAN'T control and that could be solved by adding literally 1s to the timer. (Same goes for Blood Weapon on DRK for the love of god SE fix this skill)

Flamethrower sucks though 100% (for raid), though it'd be fine if they replaced it with some kind of extra weavable skill that can be used in rotation outside of Hypercharge (or just remove FT from the game completely, shuffle some skill unlock levels around, and give the job the potency buffs it desperately needs) Air anchor also felt like it should've honestly been a 70 skill instead of given halfway through SHB. Some of the skills could be shuffled around to make certain brackets of content more bearable/certain level caps feel more satisfying to reach..

Also WF feels weak atm because from SHB to EW it went from 1200>900 pot thanks to the nerfs MCH received, which SHOULD have been reverted in 6.08 in all honesty, but instead we only got a piddly 220 pot per 2minutes in the form of the drill clones being buffed which wasn't even notable whatsoever. If they hadn't nerfed WF's potency in 6.0 we'd be fine, but atm our personal damage just doesn't make us as viable in the ranged slot as a raid buff job because barely anybody is going to prio MCH over SAM or BLM as their comp's selfish DPS to pump raid buffs into.

Also the nerf of drill and its clones from 700 to 550 was pretty painful. If the potencies on WF and all drill clones would've stayed the same we'd be putting out 1950 more potency every 2 minutes than we were in 6.05 and 1730 more potency than we are in 6.08. THAT ALONE would make MCH a desirable pick on the level of SAM/BLM (which it rightfully should be considering it provides no other raid utility)

[Seraphor]

Flamethrower should share a cooldown with Air Anchor, and be the AoE equivalent of that skill.
It should generate 20 Battery on use, and get a 20 potency (per second! 200 potency total over the full 10s) buff, which would make it a useful 'cooldown realignment' skill. It would definitely be worth using over Scattergun spam, but you could still end it early if a more potent ability (Chainsaw or Hypercharge) came off cooldown.

Automaton Queen should work more like Blood of the Dragon with Nastrond/Stardiver. Instead of having a finisher move that you trigger to end it early, your manual skills are part of her 'rotation', and serve to direct her to the target you need her to attack.

Finally, get rid of Hypercharge as a skill entirely. Instead, have Heat Blast/Autocrossbow 'proc' once you get 50 Heat Gauge, and using them triggers Hypercharge and acts as the first 'Hypercharged' weaponskill. This means your wildfire burst window only requires a single weave (Wildfire > Heat Blastx5) instead of a double weave (Hypercharge > Wildfire > Heatblastx5)

That, along with the mentioned rebuffs to Drill/Anchor/Chainsaw and Wildfire, and MCH would be in a happy place.

[ASkellington]

Personally I'd like it if MCH felt more gadgety in its gameplay. Most of its "gadgets" seem to just be in the animations and not in how it actually plays.

If we're going to keep MCH as it is though, yes to making Wildfire > Hypercharge to being more smooth.
Double yes for making Queen and Rook more responsive and actually fighting what we're attacking.
Triple yes to making Flamethrower worthwhile. (Is it even worth being put on our bars? I've been told mixed answers)

And yes to the nth degree to making the class as a whole more ping friendly.

[Dyvid]

Key things I would like to see
1) Fix Turret/Queen AI to a simple pet command of "Attack". The target I highlight when I use Rook Turret/AQ is the target it attacks.
2) I need something to speed Battery Gauge during AoE situations.
3) Flamethrower, do something with it. It's equal to Scattershot but Scattershot is charging up my Auto Crossbow.

[CKNovel]

Key things I would like to see
1) Fix Turret/Queen AI to a simple pet command of "Attack". The target I highlight when I use Rook Turret/AQ is the target it attacks.
2) I need something to speed Battery Gauge during AoE situations.
3) Flamethrower, do something with it. It's equal to Scattershot but Scattershot is charging up my Auto Crossbow.

1&2 can be merged.
If you command the Queen, you can have a Single Target GCD and a AoE GCD.

As for Flamethrower, I'd like it to be at the minimum a 60s cooldown that consumes 50 heat.
But that would require to change Wildfire and/or Barrel Stabilizer. The second should really be "Your next heat spending action is free" rather than filling 50 of the heat gauge.

[Calanque]

Key things I would like to see
1) Fix Turret/Queen AI to a simple pet command of "Attack". The target I highlight when I use Rook Turret/AQ is the target it attacks.
2) I need something to speed Battery Gauge during AoE situations.

So the turrets attack the target of the player when summoned? I would agree with that. While the turret is on the battlefield, the “Summon” button could be replaced with an “Attack” one that can force another target if needed.
I agree that the AoE rotation needs some Battery generation and a spender. I think Scattergun should give 5 Battery. They should either reintroduce the Bishop turret or give an AoE attack to the Queen. In any case, I’m sure they can find a way to avoid the qualms the playerbase had with the previous iteration of the Bishop.

[Barrel Stabilizer] should really be "Your next heat spending action is free" rather than filling 50 of the heat gauge.

I like this.

Some other changes I would like to see for the AoE rotation would be turning Air Anchor into a circle AoE. Also, maybe Auto Crossbow could reduce the cooldown of Ricochet? Potencies would be adjusted accordingly of course.

[Kaedys]

Also WF feels weak atm because from SHB to EW it went from 1200>900 pot thanks to the nerfs MCH received, which SHOULD have been reverted in 6.08 in all honesty, but instead we only got a piddly 220 pot per 2minutes in the form of the drill clones being buffed which wasn't even notable whatsoever. If they hadn't nerfed WF's potency in 6.0 we'd be fine, but atm our personal damage just doesn't make us as viable in the ranged slot as a raid buff job because barely anybody is going to prio MCH over SAM or BLM as their comp's selfish DPS to pump raid buffs into.

Also the nerf of drill and its clones from 700 to 550 was pretty painful. If the potencies on WF and all drill clones would've stayed the same we'd be putting out 1950 more potency every 2 minutes than we were in 6.05 and 1730 more potency than we are in 6.08. THAT ALONE would make MCH a desirable pick on the level of SAM/BLM (which it rightfully should be considering it provides no other raid utility)

Those weren't "nerfs". They reduced the potency of nearly all weapon skills, due to the change in the damage formula to make weapon skills and spells scale the same and use the same formula. Look at nearly every other physical ability in the game, they all got a ~20-25% "nerf" to their potency to account for the new damage formula. Just grabbing some abilities more or less at random to demonstrate the point:

• [DRG] True Thrust: 290p -> 230p (-21%)
• [SAM] Midare: 800p -> 660p (-17.5%)
• [SAM] Higanbana: 250p + 800p (1050p total) -> 200p + 600p (800p total) (-24%)
• [NIN] Aeolian Edge: 480p -> 380p (-21%) (Aeolian Edge later gets upgraded to 420p by a level 84 trait, but the 1:1 at level 80 is -21%)
• [BRD] Apex Arrow: 600p -> 500p (-17%)
• [DNC] Saber Dance: 600p -> 480p (-20%)

So the reduction of all of your shots was not as nerf to MCH. It wasn't even a nerf period, because they adjusted the equations behind the scenes. The potency reductions were to account for the fact that the new equation for physical attacks results in ~25-30% higher base damage.

[Vatom]

The more I read this the more I wonder does anyone know what they really want from mch that will lead to a actual conclusion

[CKNovel]

The more I read this the more I wonder does anyone know what they really want from mch that will lead to a actual conclusion

Overall, everyone repeats the same things:
-Automaton Queen is bad, boring and sometimes frustrating. MCH should be given the control of it with a possible choice of an AoE option.
-Flamethrower needs a rework, it's confusing and an unfulfilling capstone ability.
-Wildfire is weak and doesn't feel rewarding, unfulfilling + Makes the 120s extremely rigid with Barrel Stabilizer.
-Heatblast spam needs something, spamming the same button 5 times in a row and tying a whole gauge to it doesn't make the phase fun.

In short:
All automated abilities that plays themselves needs some change.
Flamethrower, Automaton Queen and Wildfire are way too automated.

The goods comes from Drill, Air Anchor and Chain Saw. Those 3 abilities basically carry the whole job.


As for the wishes:
I see a lot of people who wants a return of the old turrets, especially with Flamethrower.
If this would happen, I'd like for the turret to follow the MCH and that would spew cone aoe in the direction of the target.

Many people are also disappointed by the lack of actual chainsaw, but another group is worried about the melee phase due to RDM experience.

[VentVanitas]

This is just a me thing, but I would like to see the Ammo gauge (and the Reload skills) return in some capacity. I'm not asking for RNG combos to come back, but I do feel like a lot of potential was lost by canning Ammo entirely.