@Shurrikhan
I suppose so, it still seems like quite the turret though even then.

I'm aware of how it was in Stormblood, the idea though is Bard has the procs through songs and Dancer has the chance of unlocking the rest. Having Machinist be the more static one is fine, albeit needing to be careful not to get fully back to the clunkiness of the full Stormblood rotation. I never really mentioned ammo being the thing that made it inferior although it was just part of the whole.

The sarcasm truly helps me get into your post more, very much so. I would be more inclined to listen without it. However yes, Machinist being the harder of the Physical Ranged isn't hyperbole, Bard isn't all that difficult even in the olden times with song management, and Dancer needs no explanation.

The thing is it essentially forces you to save everything for that one duration, and having any miss in that window whether something jumps away or happens to die is simply disheartening. Just because that's how it worked for half the lifetime doesn't always mean it has to go back there. All we need now is for the general potency to go much much higher overall, but still apply the same potency regardless, which again the PVP method is a good showcase on having a nice burst. If they happened to give it the weaponskill boost, it has the potential to mess with the freedom of the proposed rework.

The current direction of Machinist isn't ideal because it's the extreme of being overly simple while not meeting where it should be. I remember doing that old opener and rotation back in the day though and it was very much painful. Yes, I could do it consistently, but if it wasn't the damage being sad even then, it was also painful whenever even one thing happened to deviate, which is a common thing in any fight. My direction is to keep the class mostly freeform but have the player needing to think twice when using their filler move, and giving back some of the lost utility.