Anyone else holding out hope for Machinist?

[Mayhemmer]

They haven't fixed MCH since they destroyed in in 4.0.

MCH was unironically my favorite DPS job by the end of Stormblood, though I wish I had put more time into in HW. Was it weird and confusing to learn? Yeah, sure. Did it underperform? I'm told it did, but I never raided, so it's not like I cared much about that part.

The more I compare StB MCH to it's current iteration, the more I miss it. Most of the setup to it's wildfire window has been gutted and simplified since then. Learning how to manage heat and ammo and CD's back then to more efficiently squeeze damage out of those windows were what made it fun and engaging for me. It felt rewarding knowing I was doing it better every time. Now, I just press two buttons for the same effect.

I imagine most other people mainly want to discuss it's balance issues, but personally, I just miss old MCH. It's so boring to me now...

[Zsolen]

Okay, play 500 matches in a row in Crystal as MCH, record your win rates, and report back to see how they are, assuming you're playing optimally, at skill cap and minimal/no mistakes.

It's not meant as a personal attack or anything like that, just pointing out the great pains MCH has currently in PvP and for anyone making great claims of it need to have the data to back it up.

Are you telling me you played every job 500 times in crystal? Because that is the only way you can compare the jobs fully, according to you. You certainly don't sound like the type that knows what to do as a MCH. Maybe you simply aren't targeting the people your teammates are targeting, because MCH does a ton of damage. Kills will happen.

[CKNovel]

1. Scattergun hitting multiple times and (originally) pushing wildfire past its intended limit was a good interaction. The "Multiple hit" weaponskill aesthetic is pretty cool, and we don't get enough "Multiple hit" skills. Incoporating this into the hypercharge window makes it more entertaining and gives wildfire a needed boost.

Or why not simply give the ammos back for special effect on some skills?
Or "chargeable weaponskill" that have a special effect if they're allowed to charge for a certain amount of time.

It sucks as Scattergun is very satisfying to use, especially in pvp.

2. Wildfire - Just make it aoe already.

A feedback asked since what... Stormblood now? Also explodes on ennemy's death.
On top of that, I'd add the automatic detonation on the 5th GCD and extend the duration to benefits the full damage without hypercharge.
There's no point being forced to Hypercharge with Wildfire, except making MCH much more rigid.

3. Flamethrower is one of those skills where I'll want something different done with it depending on the day you ask me.
A basic fix: AoE Air Anchor.

How about just having Air Anchor AoE from the start?
I'd like Flamethrower to be something more than just another AoE variant. We already have Bio Blaster, Auto Cross bow, Scattergun and Flamethrower as AoE exclusive. I don't think we need more of those.
Be it a Hypercharge finisher like PLD Confiteor, a spender with cooldown like Double down, a different hypercharge phase. I believe we can do things much more interesting than just another variant. Just look at SAM, bloated with variants.
I'd even split Drill and Bio-Blaster at this point.

I'd be okay with anything except the Bio-Blaster Flamethrower combo. The fart does not need to explode.

4. Reassemble - Part of the reason I'm such a fan of the PVP design of Machinist is that Reassemble gives different effects to the different tools it's used with. I would like to see this come back to PVE in some way, though it's a bit more difficult to do so, and I've nothing to spitball currently, other than a basic theme.

So, the first problem is that MCH just... tinker with the gun. Analysis is much better visually.
The second problem is that Reassemble is only used for damage.

You could have various effects such as making Drill a line AoE or lower the damage of the targets.
Bio Blaster could be empowered to slow down attack speed and reduces ennemies damage.
Air Anchor could stun the ennemies or grant a shield to surrounding allies.
Chain saw could execute ennemies (non-bosses or elite) under 25% HP. It's only dungeons after all, you can go wild.
Flamethrower could be like Doom Eternal Flameblech and applies a "shieldsteal" effect on the targets. Yes, i'm a sucker for this idea.

Such a big post and we barely scrapped the surface.

[Mithron]

Are you telling me you played every job 500 times in crystal? Because that is the only way you can compare the jobs fully, according to you. You certainly don't sound like the type that knows what to do as a MCH. Maybe you simply aren't targeting the people your teammates are targeting, because MCH does a ton of damage. Kills will happen.

No, I'm saying in order to make claims that a job is fine in a competitive PvP environment, it needs to be averaged under a large data size at optimal play of enemy skill levels. Kills only happen if enemies are bad or your team that you can't control is coordinating properly, and you're gonna have a much easier job securing those kills as most other jobs than MCH, like RDM for example, or NIN, or SAM, or DRG, or even BRD's silence and burst. I've played mostly RDM in S1 and mostly MCH here in S2. MCH just doesn't do the same damage RDM can, or most of the melee.

[Zsolen]

No, I'm saying in order to make claims that a job is fine in a competitive PvP environment, it needs to be averaged under a large data size at optimal play of enemy skill levels. Kills only happen if enemies are bad or your team that you can't control is coordinating properly, and you're gonna have a much easier job securing those kills as most other jobs than MCH, like RDM for example, or NIN, or SAM, or DRG, or even BRD's silence and burst. I've played mostly RDM in S1 and mostly MCH here in S2. MCH just doesn't do the same damage RDM can, or most of the melee.

You are going by your own play, and you claimed bio and bishop are not useful. Both of them are very useful.

MCH damage is also insanely high. I've played it all 3 seasons amongst other jobs.

[Kabooa]

Such a big post and we barely scrapped the surface.

Most of what I outlined is something I can see being done within a singular patch, as it doesn't necessitate much change to what we have currently while doubling up as raw efficiency gain.

I would like to see new action types, including uh, for lack of a better term, "Charge Up" actions, where you always have access to them but they gain a beneficial effect every X seconds. This is the sort of action I think can add some much needed baseline functionality to certain skills, such as Raise for healers not having to rely solely on Swiftcast for usability, without making them always available.

Flamethrower is just a basic usability fix. I'm all for it being more interesting than that. Tool usage aside, we currently get around 4.66 tool gcds a minute, and speaking personally, I think adding too many more is going to be a bad idea given that they're on the GCD.

Frankly I'm also a fan of the tool rotation in PVP, but I figured that is a limited sentiment.

Oh, almost forgot.

Give me that god damn Sniper Rifle.

[Mithron]

You are going by your own play, and you claimed bio and bishop are not useful. Both of them are very useful.

MCH damage is also insanely high. I've played it all 3 seasons amongst other jobs.

They're not as useful as what the other jobs I've mentioned bring, however. Bio ticks no longer proc Wildfire, and Bishop's utility is often ignorable to enemy melee DPS even on the point.

How often do you break 1 million damage as MCH compared to other jobs in shorter non-overtime matches?

[RokkuEkkusu]

They haven't fixed MCH since they destroyed in in 4.0.

I'm not saying people are willing or should be willing to do HW style MCH, but a demi-caster like in pvp is probably more suitable in pve. I think SE got that backwards.

The irony is that people criticized the cast times of the physical ranged dps back in HW. Double irony is when both BRD and MCH became meta in the last Alexander Savage raid tier, even with having those cast times.

And when both BRD and MCH lost the cast times, MCH ultimately got the short end of the stick.

[RydiaFey]

No, I'm saying in order to make claims that a job is fine in a competitive PvP environment, it needs to be averaged under a large data size at optimal play of enemy skill levels. Kills only happen if enemies are bad or your team that you can't control is coordinating properly, and you're gonna have a much easier job securing those kills as most other jobs than MCH, like RDM for example, or NIN, or SAM, or DRG, or even BRD's silence and burst. I've played mostly RDM in S1 and mostly MCH here in S2. MCH just doesn't do the same damage RDM can, or most of the melee.

Hey might I suggest you ask for MCH advice on the pvp forum? You'll get the larger source of information you wanted. I play a lot of pvp, and have fought many machinists. Def people who are much better at the game than me there

[RydiaFey]

Okay.. I guess the forums decided to only post the first half of the first paragraph I wrote instead of the whole thing... Or it's just a visual bug. Luckily the edit button is also not there, since it usually shows up at the bottom, y'know, after all of your text.

Anyways... Just check out the ICY VEINS MACHINIST GUIDE, ask in the pvp forums if you want that larger data size of how MCH compares to other classes.

Hopefully it actually posts my whole reply this time!