Analysis and ideas for Machinist

[Malpercios]

Hello, I've been wanting to post a tread like this for a while and well here it is. This is small analysis and ideas on how to improve machinist’s raid performance while not totally changing its core. I've been raiding on this job for many years in almost all of its iteration, from Heavensward to Endwalker and simply wish to improve on Machinist’s concept of being a pure damage dealer who wishes to play inside their team's raid buffs.

(I want to also apologize for my bad English, as it is not my main tongue)

*Note that these are simply a list of change that could easily be implemented in a patch to help machinist to be stronger and make it feel better to play. I am not saying all of these should be implemented, but to give ideas for possible changes without having to rework the job from the ground up.*


Wildfire:

Wildfire has been lackluster for a while now. While it served a core part of the machinist’s damage in the past, it is now more or less a very subpar oGCD. While I do not think bringing back the old Wildfire would be beneficial, a few options with the current would could fix it.

1) Reducing its cooldown to one minute. What this does is simply double its damage output. While some might consider this to be too much, Wildfire is only about 2.5 to 3.5% of your total damage in a fight. (see: https://gyazo.com/83bd16fefe0262cf486c2fb7d608bcc3 ) This would effectively double its damage whilst also adding synergy in raids with a Ninja present due to the nature of trick attack being a 1 min cooldown. This would also increase the skill level by a small amount but only if you do not reduce the cooldown of Barrel stabilizer as well. By this I mean, if Barrel Stabilizer stays on a 2 min cooldown, a good machinist player would have to make sure they have enough heat every minute going into their odd minute window Wildfire phase and would punish people who use their heat gauge without much thinking. Mind you, this isn’t a huge increase in terms of difficulty. Currently a good machinist would save their heat and battery to fit in specific timers, mainly 1 minutes if a ninja is present or 2 minutes for raid buffs to be able to pump out as much damage as possible. This would simply reward more attentive players who use their cooldowns appropriately while giving Machinist more damage in general and not completely changing its flow. It would also make Wildfire feel more impactful overall.

[Malpercios]

2) Allow Wildfire to crit and direct hit (this can be paired with point 1). While in the past it made sense for it to not be able to crit and direct hit due to its damage being tied not to the amount of GCDs done inside it but the raw damage done instead (how Wildfire used to work in Heavensward and Stormblood), in its current form it feels very awkward and restrictive to not be able to scale off of both critical and direct hit. For those who don’t know, Wildfire’s damage cannot critical or direct hit, but is affected by determination and skill speed. It is coded as a DoT, so more skill speed increases its damage, but due to how small the damage increase is and how small Wildfire’s damage contribution overall is, it is not worth to go for. Therefore, Wildfire is a spell that barely scales off over the course of an expansion, only truly scaling off one stat. It is also only 900 potency. Compared to other spells like Communio (1000 potency), Technical Step (1200 potency) and many more, it simply feels awkward that this spell is so restricted at its core, especially for a 2 minute cooldown with a delayed burst.

If paired with point 1, a reduction in potency for Wildfire might be needed to not make it too strong, but this would need testing.

[Malpercios]

Barrel Stabilizer:

Adding a self-buff or giving a buff property to Barrel Stabilizer. Simply put, giving Machinist an equivalent to Raging Strikes in either the form of a brand-new skill or simply adding it as an extra effect to Barrel Stabilizer would increase its personal damage but also reward good players who can manipulate their heat properly before a burst window. What I mean by this is currently in high skilled play, a machinist would save as much heat as they can before every 2-minute buff windows. For instance, in the first two minutes of a boss fight you would save 100 heat and battery so the player can deal as much damage as possible inside your group’s raid buffs. Currently the rotation goes something along these lines (Just to reiterate, this is an example of a reopener inside raid buffs at the 2-minute mark but happens every other 2 minutes in a fight that isn’t the first opener):

(Summon Queen) Air Anchor – Drill – Hypercharge – Heat blast – Barrel Stabilizer – Heat blast x4 + weaving Ricochet and Gauss Round - (Reassemble) Chainsaw – Wildfire Hypercharge – Heat blast x 5 + Ricochet and Gauss Round - Drill.

This rotation is merely an example of the current one formed by some of the members of the community who strive to make the best out of the job. I am by no mean saying that this rotation would work if said change is implemented. Extensive work would probably be needed by the more qualified members of the community to fit this change in our rotation.

As seen above, Barrel Stabilizer is used early in the sequence. If a buff effect is added to it, say a 10 or 15% increase in damage for 20 seconds similar to Bard’s Raging Strike, this would make machinist’s burst much more potent as it would increase the damage of all instances of heat blast minus one, all instances of ricochet and Gauss Round, a reassembled Chain Saw, Wildfire, Drill and possibly Queen Automaton if the buff affects her. This would not only add some layer and skill to the job as it would reward the patient Machinist who pools their resources, but also exponentially increase the player’s damage inside raid buffs, further increasing its party synergy akin to a good Samurai player playing inside raid buffs. This could be coupled with a raw damage increase to Heat Blast, as own its own is barely a damage increase over your heated shot combo, only being more valuable due to its reset mechanic. A potency of 190 (+ 20 from Hypercharge) like shown in the Media tour would further increase and put focus on machinist's ability to do damage inside raid buff windows.

This would also work if we are given buff on its own but would add another oGCD to weave inside our burst window which are already pretty busy. This would also add towards the issue that machinist has flaws when it comes to higher ping. I will link you to a tread made by devoted members of the community which go in further detail on how ping affects the job: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...tions-normally

[Malpercios]

Ping, Gauss Round and Ricochet:

This final point isn’t really how to improve machinist’s damage but simply an addition to the point made above. Currently if a good machinist player pools their resources to burst inside raid buffs, they are met by a very busy burst phase. Every GCD will have a single or double weave to it, meaning it is extremely punishing if you do not have the latency to reliably do so. While it would not fix the issues at its core (and again I strongly recommend reading the forum post I posted above), increasing the number of stacks from 3 to 4 for both Gauss Round and Ricochet would be extremely beneficial as it would give the player a breathing room if they cannot weave every single GCD. Mixed with that, adding a stack system similar to Inner Release to Hypercharge would also alleviate some of the issue. Mind you these do not fix the problem as it is deeply rooted in how the game sends information to the server.

Conclusion:

That’s about it. I’ve been wanting to post something about this issue for a long time as Machinist has been my baby since Heavensward. I get that for many it is seen as too simply and mindless and while I agree to some degree, current Machinist can have a lot of dept if you want to play it properly. It simply needs more in its kit to make it feel like the pure damage dealer it is meant to be. These ideas are just that, ideas I've been thinking for a while. They do not change the job at its core, so for anyone who wants the job to be fully reworked, this isn’t really it. But these add some dept to it and some skill level but not too much so it doesn’t scare away people from the job. I’ve raided on this job for many years now, in almost all of its iteration from a more casual raiding scene to a more serious one. In the end, all I want is simply for this job to feel like what it’s meant to be, to feel like it's worth playing and bringing in raids, to feel it has a place. As it stands now, Machinist feels somewhat weak and does not fit in it's role of a selfish DPS. This also is an issue deeply seated in the physical range role overall which is a whole other discussion on it's own that many people have spoken about in these forums.



PS: I’d love a Sniper tool please Yoship! It could be like Reaper’s Communio at the end of every hypercharge window! Have a cast time and all!

[Tsumdere]

Hey! Nice post! I like all of your suggestions, but would like to add a few of my own as someone who has been savage/ultimate raiding on MCH for many, many years.

1. Allow the MCH to activate Pile Bunker and Crowned Collider manually. This gives more interaction with Queen and allows the MCH to feel the impact of the skills.

2. Melee range chainsaw. This combined with MCH's desire to not drift a single millisecond would create a lot of room for optimization and skill expression.

QoL Changes Suggested

1. Have Queen attack the target you are attacking. This is immensely needed and will alleviate a lot of headache using her in multi-target fights.

[Ayden]

Hey! Nice post! I like all of your suggestions, but would like to add a few of my own as someone who has been savage/ultimate raiding on MCH for many, many years.

1. Allow the MCH to activate Pile Bunker and Crowned Collider manually. This gives more interaction with Queen and allows the MCH to feel the impact of the skills.

2. Melee range chainsaw. This combined with MCH's desire to not drift a single millisecond would create a lot of room for optimization and skill expression.

QoL Changes Suggested

1. I do agree some interaction with the robot would be nice. But with how busy MCH is during hypercharge especially during even minute bursts, I don't see where we can manually activate queen's attacks without dropping some Ricochet and Gauss Round. In the end you are still pressing same amount of buttons during hypercharge.

2. I am not sure why many like the idea of a melee skill. I personally find the Ifrit's gap closer skill very annoying, but you can still choose when to summon ifrit. As for MCH, our rotation is very static and we wont want to delay chainsaw, there might be time you are required to be at range to do certain mechanic - potential drift?

[Ayden]

Pet design is pretty bad in this game. However big the attacks our pet is doing they don't feel impactful and satisfied at all.

How about turning ourselves into the robot and we shoot the rockets ourselves.

[CKNovel]

Hi, most of the points you bring already have been talked about.

Wildfire to 1 minute, wildfire is too lackluster for a "burst"
Feedback exist since 5.0., no idea why SQEX never changed anything about it.

Heatblast spam finisher
Same, feedback since 5.0. It would've been understandable if Hypercharge was on 3 GCDs.

Wildfire needs to crit/dh
I disagree, allowing RNG on this big hitting skill will make its dps less reliable, more volatile.
It wouldn't make Wildfire more intesresting, just more rng.

The real problem is that Wildfire is but an empowered Hypercharge.

If it's on a 60s cooldown, why not, but not on a 120s cooldown.

Barrel Stabilizer
Thinking about it, a buff rather than 50 heat would be a much better version.
I still think it should be a "free hypercharge" rather than a 50 heat button.

[MerlinCross]

Op -

1 - Wildfire CD; I’m not opposed to this though how would people feel about 2 Wildfire charges? I do agree for something that they seem to want us to try and squeeze out as much out of it as we can, simply having more instances to do so would help.

2 - Wildfire Damage; I agree to the change, letting us get bonus damage with Crit direct hits but I feel it’s unfair to compare the ability to two cap stone attacks. Even with how much they seem to want to push it. Honestly buff the trait extra damage from 150 to 200 at least. Maybe 250 but that would depend on any CD changes.

2. Melee range chainsaw. This combined with MCH's desire to not drift a single millisecond would create a lot of room for optimization and skill expression.

Would you like a hockey mask too?

Flame thrower was horrible to fit in not just due to making the most out of the heat generation, why would you want to give us another awkward ability to fit in?

How about turning ourselves into the robot and we shoot the rockets ourselves.

.... I’m done. I’m done. Just do whatever you want with the job just make it look cool, why not.

We fought the weapons just give us Diamond to pilot.

[Jirah]

Op -

1 - Wildfire CD; I’m not opposed to this though how would people feel about 2 Wildfire charges? I do agree for something that they seem to want us to try and squeeze out as much out of it as we can, simply having more instances to do so would help.

2 - Wildfire Damage; I agree to the change, letting us get bonus damage with Crit direct hits but I feel it’s unfair to compare the ability to two cap stone attacks. Even with how much they seem to want to push it. Honestly buff the trait extra damage from 150 to 200 at least. Maybe 250 but that would depend on any CD changes.



Would you like a hockey mask too?

Flame thrower was horrible to fit in not just due to making the most out of the heat generation, why would you want to give us another awkward ability to fit in?



.... I’m done. I’m done. Just do whatever you want with the job just make it look cool, why not.

We fought the weapons just give us Diamond to pilot.

I have my own opinions on SHB+ MCH mains suggestions, and so far I’ve remained unconvinced. Including you OP no hard feelings but all your suggestions just seem more on adding more fat or bloat to MCH than streamlining and enhancing it I mean 4 stacks of gadget skills is remedial except the BS buff suggestions that’s a hot take and MCH needs a buff skill to add some structure sure, now that WF went all GCD on us it kinda lacks that. But you did say you just wanna add adjustments which MCH doesn’t need a band aid fix it needs to reevaluate its purpose compared to pure DPS and ranged support and I’m mostly confident MCH will persist being a wet blanket under these overexaggerations of its flow or whatever vague compliments people give it