Machinist needs some reworking

[Keiisuke]

If you let the artificial intelligence do the work, we will still have the weird behaviors that we already have now.

They might give us actions to control AQ much like the old summoner, but that would be a throwback to a solution that's outdated/bad for many reasons.

Either they completely remove AQ and replace it with something new, or we are given complete control of AQ by piloting it, which would solve all the problems concerning it (the possibility of changing targets at any time for example) or else we do nothing about it and we act like there's no problem and everything's fine.

We have to remember that the job is called machinist for a reason. We call on different tools and machines to do the job, it would make complete sense for the machinist to pilote his own machines to improve his abilities and his own safety.

[CKNovel]

Honestly, AQ and LS should be like 6.0 Bahamut/Phoenix.
You still play your rotation, they assist you and you can give them an order from time to time.

SMN got Akh Morn, gives MCH Eternal Darkness.
Or at least Math robot, it would also fit really well.

[MerlinCross]

Honestly, AQ and LS should be like 6.0 Bahamut/Phoenix.
You still play your rotation, they assist you and you can give them an order from time to time.

SMN got Akh Morn, gives MCH Eternal Darkness.
Or at least Math robot, it would also fit really well.

Which to me is a completely fine way to do it. That said I don't know enough about how Summoner works(Even with all the changes I look at Summoner, and mentally check out) but I would think it would be better to make it more interactive/flowing with your kit than the possible disruption of taking control of it might cause.

Still needs to work with Overheat, or at least play nice with it though.

[Deceptus]

Leveling it up so much of the kit actively conflicts with itself.

Hypercharge: Only affects single target weaponskills, but activates Auto-Crossbow, an aoe skill that it doesn't affect in any way?

Heat Blast: Lowers the CD on Ricochet and Gauss Round but Auto Crossbow doesn't? Either HB should lower Gauss and AC should lower Richocet or Both HB and AC should lower both. Not one or the other.

Flamethrower: It seems weak but it pulses every second which makes it decent. But the numbers don't pop so you don't really see them. IMHO it should be 200 potency / second so it's always worth using with the CD it has. Anything to keep away from 1-2-3ing.

Wildfire needs to always Crit or DH - Crit. It needs to hit HARD for the 2m CD it has.

Battery Generation sucks. Then you hit 90 and get Chainsaw and it's manageable. But the Battery Gauge has zero aoe utility. So if you're in a dungeon on trash you're just sitting on it.

There is absolutely zero reason for Tactician / Shield Samba / Troubadour to be different buttons. They can't be stacked and do the exact same thing.

[Dyvid]

Leveling it up so much of the kit actively conflicts with itself.

Hypercharge: Only affects single target weaponskills, but activates Auto-Crossbow, an aoe skill that it doesn't affect in any way?

Heat Blast: Lowers the CD on Ricochet and Gauss Round but Auto Crossbow doesn't? Either HB should lower Gauss and AC should lower Richocet or Both HB and AC should lower both. Not one or the other.

Flamethrower: It seems weak but it pulses every second which makes it decent. But the numbers don't pop so you don't really see them. IMHO it should be 200 potency / second so it's always worth using with the CD it has. Anything to keep away from 1-2-3ing.

Wildfire needs to always Crit or DH - Crit. It needs to hit HARD for the 2m CD it has.

Battery Generation sucks. Then you hit 90 and get Chainsaw and it's manageable. But the Battery Gauge has zero aoe utility. So if you're in a dungeon on trash you're just sitting on it.

There is absolutely zero reason for Tactician / Shield Samba / Troubadour to be different buttons. They can't be stacked and do the exact same thing.

Honestly they should make Auto Crossbow into an AoE Bishop type Turret that uses battery and change Flamethrower into the Heat Gauge.

[Jirah]

Leveling it up so much of the kit actively conflicts with itself.

Hypercharge: Only affects single target weaponskills, but activates Auto-Crossbow, an aoe skill that it doesn't affect in any way?

Heat Blast: Lowers the CD on Ricochet and Gauss Round but Auto Crossbow doesn't? Either HB should lower Gauss and AC should lower Richocet or Both HB and AC should lower both. Not one or the other.

Flamethrower: It seems weak but it pulses every second which makes it decent. But the numbers don't pop so you don't really see them. IMHO it should be 200 potency / second so it's always worth using with the CD it has. Anything to keep away from 1-2-3ing.

Wildfire needs to always Crit or DH - Crit. It needs to hit HARD for the 2m CD it has.

Battery Generation sucks. Then you hit 90 and get Chainsaw and it's manageable. But the Battery Gauge has zero aoe utility. So if you're in a dungeon on trash you're just sitting on it.

There is absolutely zero reason for Tactician / Shield Samba / Troubadour to be different buttons. They can't be stacked and do the exact same thing.

Been saying these things for years but back then people were too amazed by the echo chamber rework. But now the cheap paint job is chipping

[MerlinCross]

Leveling it up so much of the kit actively conflicts with itself.

Hypercharge: Only affects single target weaponskills, but activates Auto-Crossbow, an aoe skill that it doesn't affect in any way?

Heat Blast: Lowers the CD on Ricochet and Gauss Round but Auto Crossbow doesn't? Either HB should lower Gauss and AC should lower Richocet or Both HB and AC should lower both. Not one or the other.

Flamethrower: It seems weak but it pulses every second which makes it decent. But the numbers don't pop so you don't really see them. IMHO it should be 200 potency / second so it's always worth using with the CD it has. Anything to keep away from 1-2-3ing.

Wildfire needs to always Crit or DH - Crit. It needs to hit HARD for the 2m CD it has.

Battery Generation sucks. Then you hit 90 and get Chainsaw and it's manageable. But the Battery Gauge has zero aoe utility. So if you're in a dungeon on trash you're just sitting on it.

There is absolutely zero reason for Tactician / Shield Samba / Troubadour to be different buttons. They can't be stacked and do the exact same thing.

Hypercharge/Heatblast - I believe the reason is they don't want you using it for Dungeons and rushing more, or boss Minion phases. Is it a good reason? No but it's the only excuse I can think of. They've seemingly hated our AoE since Grenado was removed.

Flamethrower - Honestly I dislike it myself but it does need to hit hard enough to justify it's channel. That or shorten it's channel... or both.

Wildfire - Eyup.

Battery - Personally I say the generation and usage are bad considering you just spend it for a fancy Damage over time that has a burst hit at the end.

Shields - It's for flavor but agreed. Tactician doesn't stack with itself so I don't know why they don't just have 1 ability that's the same. Probably left over from when... I think Bard's gave more defense against Magic(?) and they just haven't done anything with it since. Even if it did stack that'd how much extra defense because percentages are weird? I don't see it breaking anything in the game if they could stack.

Really does feel like we've just keep getting new and conflicting layers of paint.

[EdwinLi]

I say keep it mostly as it is since MCH being the simple job is one of the things it is meant to be for those who prefer a DPS job that is not overly complicated or expect you to constantly keep a eye on your job mechanic and rotations.

Things that need to be changed is the Flamethrower as it is a very useless skill to have. Update it into a 2nd DoT skill that apply burn DoT condition.

A new thing they can add in the future is maybe give MCH a Power Armor mechanic that has the MCH temporaily gain a power armor which updates their skills to Power Armor skills for heavy Burst Damage that can rival a Black Mage burst damage or greater if managed right. Access to the Power Armor can be based after using the Queen once or twice, the MCH gains the abiltiy to fuse with the Queen to obtain his/her power armor for this burst mode attacks until all energy is spent.

[Zofian]

I would like to have the Automaton Queen out for longer. Square won't allow us to have them out in cities like pets which is fine, in order to keep the amount of spawned entities/players to a minimum (plus the size the AQs take up) and reduce GPU/CPU strain. But having them out for 20 seconds in battle, even through repeated use, is barely enough to warrant creating such a detailed thing in the first place. After the initial activation, you should be able to keep performing the necessary weaponskills to keep them running and top up the charge, but have it cap out at perhaps 45 seconds via 'overheating' and shutting down (performing it's finishing skill still). And yes this 45 second timer would need to replace the original 20, not be something you get as an upgrade via a trait at level 90 and can enjoy in a grand total of 5 dungeons or something, when synced.

As far as new skills go, perhaps Machinist could get a 'snipe' skill. A one-shot of maybe 400 potency, but it has a range of 60y and there's a 'cast' timer of 6 seconds (any attack on you will interrupt). It requires you target an enemy in the normal manner. The recast can be 3 minutes, I don't mind. I just think we need to think outside the 30y box with attack ranges.

[MerlinCross]

I would like to have the Automaton Queen out for longer. Square won't allow us to have them out in cities like pets which is fine, in order to keep the amount of spawned entities/players to a minimum (plus the size the AQs take up) and reduce GPU/CPU strain. But having them out for 20 seconds in battle, even through repeated use, is barely enough to warrant creating such a detailed thing in the first place. After the initial activation, you should be able to keep performing the necessary weaponskills to keep them running and top up the charge, but have it cap out at perhaps 45 seconds via 'overheating' and shutting down (performing it's finishing skill still). And yes this 45 second timer would need to replace the original 20, not be something you get as an upgrade via a trait at level 90 and can enjoy in a grand total of 5 dungeons or something, when synced.

As far as new skills go, perhaps Machinist could get a 'snipe' skill. A one-shot of maybe 400 potency, but it has a range of 60y and there's a 'cast' timer of 6 seconds (any attack on you will interrupt). It requires you target an enemy in the normal manner. The recast can be 3 minutes, I don't mind. I just think we need to think outside the 30y box with attack ranges.

That's the biggest problem with Queen is that it just feels so much like a dead end. But considering how SMN got changed(For better or for worse depending), I doubt they're going to do anything more complex AI wise than "Here... have a dot". Which is a shame really.

As for Snipe...., I'm of a few minds here;
1 - Giving MCH more range to play around could help it forge it stand out
2 - With the why boss arenas seem to be laid out, I'm not entirely sure if the distance is warrented most of the time.
3 - Considering people complained about BRD and it's freedom to do things back in 2.0, would people like MCH getting more range? Different time sure but...., they complained enough to the point BRD got wrecked in Heavensward.
4 - Speaking of Heavensward, people complained ENOUGH about Bow/Gunmage that it got dropped next expansion, We aren't getting cast times back as a design option.

A new thing they can add in the future is maybe give MCH a Power Armor mechanic that has the MCH temporaily gain a power armor which updates their skills to Power Armor skills for heavy Burst Damage that can rival a Black Mage burst damage or greater if managed right. Access to the Power Armor can be based after using the Queen once or twice, the MCH gains the abiltiy to fuse with the Queen to obtain his/her power armor for this burst mode attacks until all energy is spent.

I've gone on about this in other topics, and here even, probably. It's all starting to blur together.

So I'll agree to Power Armor/Piloted Queen but with a question. How do we make it interact or work with Hypercharge/Overheat? Because if we don't do anything it just holding Inner Release to use during.... Inner Release.