Machinist needs some reworking

[Atmaweapon510]

It's got a couple issues plaguing it right now:

-Its core rotation can't be expanded upon meaningfully. Cooldown weaponskills like Drill are inflexible without charges, but charges would take away MCH's only meaningful skill expression in how well you can keep to its static rotation.

-Machinist has 3 versions of Drill. None of them beyond the first add to MCH's gameplay outside of giving them enough battery to summon a robot at convenient fight times.

-It has a slew of mechanics that make it scale poorly with secondary stats. Hypercharge windows devalue skillspeed, Wildfire and Reassemble devalue crit and direct hit.

-They don't want to give Machinist itself any new, flashy high damaging attacks because of Reassemble. Reassemble is really boring and just paired with any cooldown weaponskill.

-Its capstone burst abilities, Wildfire and Automaton Queen, lack aesthetic impact. They're ogcd abilities that are easy to lose track of. Automaton Queen especially gets lost in the gaggle of melee and sfx, like, how often do you realize it even used Pile Bunker/Crowned Collider?

-Automaton Queen can't be controlled outside of its initial summon. It can end up attacking something you don't want to focus.

-Flamethrower is useless. It's kind of sad because I believe an attack like this could serve a purpose in a kit, like, if MCH really liked skillspeed and ended up with drifting issues, that's where you plug in Flamethrower, a resource neutral attack where you just torch stuff for as long as you need to realign your rotation with a burst window. However, it doesn't deal enough damage to have any purpose so it's basically worthless.


The devs already admitted that Machinist is "complete" as it is and can't really add much, so it's sort of at a dead end point. That's why the Automaton Queen ended up with MCH's highest potency attack that lacks any input. The only recourse is a rework.

On this note, I'd like to ask: Would you prefer Machinist's gameplay to be more calculating, or just APM heavy? The thing is, I feel like MCH could sort of double down on its hypercharge identity by become "the" APM based ranged class. Bard's main gameplay gimmick is paying attention to timers, Dancer's gimmick is having procs everywhere. I'd like for Machinist to be remain simple, but have a base weaponskill cast time reduction like MNK, SAM, or NIN to give it a more Trigger Happy feel.

[Sorzai]

Yeah i totally agree Machinist needs a rework and it can be added upon. I feel that it needs to add more something to it's Auto Turrets/Automaton Queen. I think that it would be great if they added charges to Rook Auto Turret and allow min 2 turrets on the field, and can copy some weaponskills (i.e. Drill, flamethrower, etc ?) and make Automaton Queen as a finisher. I find that having the multiple auto turrets on the field will be beneficial because depending on how SE wants to rework MCH (i.e. into more support role, or more damage), the Auto Turrets can be used for support or dmg.

I just pictured it would be cool to have 2 Auto Turrets out, and having them overload and shoot a huge ass laser as a finisher.

[Tsumdere]

I too would like for MCH to remain simple, but lean into very high APM. I enjoy the niche it has of being a simple, but strict job that focuses on keeping all of their short timer cooldowns rolling with minimal drift.

I like the base of the job very much and don't think it needs to change per se... but Flamethrower and Queen are really jank/bad skills that need to completely changed. Wildfire and Hypercharge are okay as is I think, but need to hit significantly harder and have some visual oomph. Most of all, I want them to rework Queen. The summon animation + the time it takes for Crowned Collider off + the inability to control her target makes her very annoying to use.

It might be interesting if Queen could be active as long as you kept battery rolling. If you kept your cooldowns rolling, it keeps generating battery to keep her out on the field. She runs out of battery, she desummons and you have to build up gauge to summon her again. Having her active gives you access to press Crowned Collider and Pile Bunker (combo into each other?) when they are off cooldown, adding another layer of CDs to keep an eye on. Not difficult, but busy and punishing if you let yourself drift too much.
(i dunno it's late - maybe I'll think this is stupid in the morning. all I know is I really hate current queen)

[WiccaP]

Heck, even giving us the old rook and bishop turrets would be an improvement and honestly something Id love to see again. I dont see how they cant expand upon the class. Ok theres only so many gun tricks, but we are Machinists not Gunners. Play heavier into the machine side of things. Give us a grenade aoe, or grappling hook gap closer, a "turret" that you lob out and puts an aoe shield that lasts for so many seconds or until it takes so much damage as a "heal buff/mitigation" or a mobility ability like Haste in Bohzja since we are the "mobile class". Make the AQ something that there's an actual build toward. Not just "do rotation, hit button and forget", or when she's out our standard rotation upgrades again. There are so many awesome machine based weapons and ideas in Final Fantasy lore and games that they could take inspiration from.

[Caitlyn]

Lets get back to Stormblood MCH. Many didnt like it and the fews who really mained it, doesnt really complain.

[CKNovel]

I agree that MCH has issues but half of what you list is none of them.

Drill and the similar abilities (GCD-Cooldown) are the core of MCH rotation, you're supposed to juggle with heat and those GCD cooldown in order to not waste heat or Machineries.
The problem is that this works when the heat is flexible, heat is way too rigid right now due to locking for 10 seconds, the problem comes from the heat, not the machineries.
If you added a charge, people would simply try to optimize and hit 2 charges in the 60s and 120s windows.

Same for SKS synergy, most ranged don't want SKS and most job don't want SKS. It's a SKS problem not a MCH problem.

I can't agree more with the Queen, Wildfire and Flamethrower, they're all press and forget.
I suggest you pay a bit more attention to the Queen. You'd notice there is many scenarios she would skip Crown Collider entirely.

Flamethrower needs a whole rework, no matter what buffs or gauge interaction you add it would remain a "remain immobile and don't touch your keyboard" skill.

If I remember well, SQEX made those reworks to have a better base to expand on. Except they expanded nothing.
I'll just conclude that there is a lot the Devs could have done with EW MCH:
-Cooldown that consumes heat, it's only only for Hypercharge.
-A different "hypercharge phase" but with a 60s cooldown.
-Reassemble put on a 30s CD would make the second charge logical
-Many people wanted a melee chainsaw phase. It's not a problem anymore for RDM.
-If you put Hypercharge on 3 GCDs rather than 5, it would open a lot of rooms.

It's just that they refused to expand MCH for unknown reasons.
Even Ranged role action deserves a rework.

[Thi]

I honestly would not fussed if they removed Queen and replaced it with something else. It just isn't a fun mechanic to press a button and watch a robot do things. I'd rather have more CDs for myself to use and really lean into the High APM aspect of the job.

I doubt it would happen because MMO, but it would be interesting to mimic the Trigger Happy skill from FFX-2's Gunner. Essentially you went into Trigger Happy and you had a window to hit as many times as possible (but had no GCD) as you spammed R1. Downside is this would be even more ping dependent than Wildfire, but it would be fun to have Active Time Event as a part of your rotation.

[Keiisuke]

I honestly would not fussed if they removed Queen and replaced it with something else. It just isn't a fun mechanic to press a button and watch a robot do things.

I wonder why we are still not able to pilot AQ and control all his actions (and maybe some more), kinda like the reaper transformation. It would be way more fun than just press a button and forget the whole thing.

[RaZz0r]

I quite enjoy MCH the way it is right now other then flamethrower being dam near useless and the heat blast weaving being so ping dependent.
But it needs to get a different job role classification as its its technically a " pure " DPS but its classed and tuned as a ranged support dps.
Yet it has almost no support skills what so ever other then tactician which doesn't stack with bards troubadour.

But as it doesn't suffer from the " pure dps " limitations like range limits and or cast times.
Therefore it cant be tuned like a pure dps job meaning square is in between a rock and a hard place.
it cant be tuned like a pure dps job but at the same time it cant be tuned as a support job ether.
They could boosts its damage as is but if they go too far they will anger the pure dps players.
Or they could rework the job give it some more utility but if they go too far there then they will anger the current MCH players.

We will see what they will do in 6.1 im hoping at least for some damage buffs maybe a charge system for heat blast so its not ping dependent.
Then maybe for the next expansion they do more of a rework give it a different job classification like pure ranged physical dps.
maybe add a new job in to that mix like i don't know Ranger making it two different branching paths from archer be it machinist and ranger both jobs focused on more raw damage instead of support.
granted this new machinist will be quite a bit different from its current version but maybe its needed.

Or just get rid of the different types of dps all together just let it be melee / ranged dps.
Since its already really easy to get high uptime as both a melee and caster especially with so many ranged / instant cast filler abilities they have.
So there is really no reason for machinist bard and dancer to be so much lower in dps maybe a few hundred dps but not several thousand.

[Thi]

I quite enjoy MCH the way it is right now other then flamethrower being dam near useless and the heat blast weaving being so ping dependent.
But it needs to get a different job role classification as its its technically a " pure " DPS but its classed and tuned as a ranged support dps.
Yet it has almost no support skills what so ever other then tactician which doesn't stack with bards troubadour.

But as it doesn't suffer from the " pure dps " limitations like range limits and or cast times.
Therefore it cant be tuned like a pure dps job meaning square is in between a rock and a hard place.
it cant be tuned like a pure dps job but at the same time it cant be tuned as a support job ether.
They could boosts its damage as is but if they go too far they will anger the pure dps players.
Or they could rework the job give it some more utility but if they go too far there then they will anger the current MCH players.

We will see what they will do in 6.1 im hoping at least for some damage buffs maybe a charge system for heat blast so its not ping dependent.
Then maybe for the next expansion they do more of a rework give it a different job classification like pure ranged physical dps.
maybe add a new job in to that mix like i don't know Ranger making it two different branching paths from archer be it machinist and ranger both jobs focused on more raw damage instead of support.
granted this new machinist will be quite a bit different from its current version but maybe its needed

I think if they keep it a pure DPS, the way to balance hardness vs cast time or melee is APM. Make MCH have the highest APM of any class by far, maybe have all gcds be 1.5 seconds on it.

That way you are working harder for your DPS in the same way melee has uptime and casters have positioning, as a MCH your hitting twice as many keystrokes.