What is the concept of MCH?

[BaroLlyonesse]

Being very serious, what is the thought behind the way MCH is designed for PvP? I thought glass cannon, but...

They took away the 100% attack but left it on SAM.
They added massive DR that reduces sniping to decent damage at best.
The second-step ranged attack requires you to close too close to melee.
They took away the ranged AOE.
No stun, one bind?
No escape move to add distance.
Zero party utility.

With a maximum range of 25y to attack from, but making them go real slow for casting the basic attack, and anyone with a gap closer have a 20y rush, there's no reason to even try to engage.

I am conflating the issues, but only a little bit. When it's all put together, the fact is if the concept is a high-damage glass cannon, they should have much longer ranges to attack from, some camouflage or escape move, and actually be able to use their LB to kill someone with more than 50-60% life. Even if you had to tangle to another move like SAM, something like an aiming target first, that would be better than what it is now.

I've watched a number of YouTube videos and hearing high-end players praising MCH nerfs in PvP because 'it is so frustrating to be killed by someone you don't even see'... that is the bloody point of the job. And then praising techniques like MNK kicking off mountains, SAM 100% multi-hit attacks, NIN that can assassinate half a dozen people.

So what is MCH supposed to be and why aren't they that?

[GordonGeeko]

Machinist is a killer.

Drill with a potency of up to 20k going through Guard ? That's amazing to finish off opponents.

LB with a potency of 36k that can be used with Wildfire and Drill ? That's pretty much a guaranteed kill on anyone if you burst correctly.

You do have a Stun with Air Anchor. Your "escape" move is pretty much knocking back enemies with Scattergun and running for your life.

Your robot can put a debuff on enemies while giving shields to your teammates... Ideal when you are fighting on the crystal.

MCH is a GREAT class.

Edit: If you are talking about Frontlines, then yeah, it hits like a wet noodle on anything that is not a ranged class.

[Elfidan]

Pretty sure this is a FL rant, but if you are away from your team there you already missed the objective of the mode.

[Novani]

In Frontlines, anything that isn't a crowd-control chain spammer or has access to an execution/knockback technique is going to come off weak. The real balance for Mechanist is in Crystalline Conflict: you are extremely front-loaded with high-potency damage (and that's before the buffed turret gets involved) enough to force many classes to immediately shield up or seek cover on the opening bout alone, and this is assuming server tick doesn't mess them over or get hit by something that doesn't even care about Guard or any other defensive.

And of course we mustn't forget the infamous 3% chance of dropping someone instantly with Chainsaw, sure it's been nerfed to not instant-kill, but that nerf is ultimately nothing as when health is that low, a calm Summer breeze would kill you.

So basically Mechanist is a low-risk high reward DPS by design, but it's also reliant on there actually being other players to take the heat off them as while they hit strongly initially, outside of that burst things get awkward very quickly for them. They're in a decent position, but melees especially will have it out for them as they tend to have just enough health to survive initial reprisal, and enough easy to reach DPS combos to be a real problem. It requires some thinking to really pull off the best results, but inside the mode it's been balanced around it shines.

[DarkMasamune]

I've been a main MCH since years and I'm fine with it. My DPS is great and those drills be going throught them monsters' cheeks.

Frontlines thought. Not enjoyable, 2/10, wouldn't do it again.

[BaroLlyonesse]

Yes, apologies, I meant FL. In CC MCH is a freakin' beast, it feels like you can snipe from across the map, and Mortar in the tight corridors is devastating, especially with the instinct to dodge out of it.

They don't have an effective Stun. It's a minimum 16 seconds to get to your Stun, and that's provided you don't want to Analyze Drill or Bioblaster.

Yes, you should be in your group, Elfidan. But if your group is melee, even staying in the back, it doesn't prevent a gap closer or mass stun from leaving you less cannon and more glass. I don't think increasing range to 30y would be game-breaking in either environment unless someone stays in the main corridor in CC, in which case they pretty much deserve what they get (and 25y is functionally identical in that environment). Even that small adjust would allow a gap that means tanks / melee DPS have to dedicate to breaking from the pack to specifically target a MCH, which is an appropriate punish to pack DPS to remove a threat.

Drill is great for finishing people off, but it's 10k every 20s / 20k every minute and a half unless you ignore Analysis for any other function of the button. Compare it to DNC who has a 10k attack every 20s which buffs yourself and DP, and a 10k AoE that buffs yourself and DP. Cutting through Guard is very cool, yes, but it's not equal.

I agree that should be the point of MCH; they finish targets and hit hard. I enjoy MCH and play it well, but it seems less like balance and more like a mishmash of leftovers for the youngest child. BRD already has a retreat, so it'd be repetitive if MCH got it, too. DNC and BRD both buff themselves and others, so it wouldn't make sense if MCH got it. The damage is fine, but there are things that chould be popped in:

1.) Change Bioblaster to Poison Mortar so the MCH doesn't have to cut their range in half to fire and get to better moves, or make it independent of the others in the rotation. Increasing Analysis recharge to 22s would present a comparative DPS rate, without causing necessary range changes.

2.) Increase range of Blast Charge to 30y; keep the progression button to 25y.

3.) Add 5y backstep to Scattershot; flavor wise it can be recoil, and is similar to Repelling Shot; instead of Bind, you get a larger gap and a double hit.

[AnnRam]

I have been trying many jobs in FL since Pvp 2.0 (Nin/MNK/DRG/RPR/BLM/SAM/SMN) but I still do it much better as MCH in terms of damage/consistency and kills. I almost never die as MCH unless I didn't pay attention to the map or got pinch really hard.



It's a job about making plays and setup your kit so the enemy raid doesn't know what to do.

They want to cap a node/point? or maybe they are going in to a choke point? - Bishop will be there and there is nothing they can do about it, 70% of people will stand on it and gain plus additional 10% damage.

Some range/healer in the enemy team has max bh and is bothering you? if you have high BH you can 2 shot them without any realistic counter play ; Analysis+Drill/Air Anchor+LB and its a guaranteed a kill from a range of 50yards.

Scattergun its actually really good, to me only has 2 uses

1) Secure kills (it deals around 12k on medium/high bh depending against what job you are attacking ) which its actually very good 2x1 damage means a lot of KS.
2)Push people out edges (high damage+fall damage = its a good combo)

Bioblaster its good for pestering tanks and DPS's who dives without purify or if a ally DRK setups a bunch of people to stay together, its a good way to force people to waste purify, also you can throw your bishop+bioblaster and will help your teammates to get easy kills.

Chainsaw? the most OP normal skill in PVP so far, there is nothing better than seeing a max bh enemy die "instantly" (its now nerfed to 95% of their HP) because they got reckless.


Just play smart and always stay at max range unless you have the advantage to go "melee" with your tanks/party.

[Llynethil]

Only use machinists have in FL is put turrets on capture points to prevent enemies capping, they're garbage otherwise, play bard if you want to be a ranged physical and be usefull to your team.

Or just play any melee, facetank 10 people, still get a kill and get out.

They should have kept the new pvp abilities to CC only as it's designd for that, it just doesn't work for fl and ends up being even worse then what we had before, and you'll never be able to fix it if you try to balance the same skills for both cc and fl, but se doesn't understand this concept so just try to use what you have at this point.

It's like trying to balance PvE skills around guildhests, but you also have to use the same skills for savage raids.

[BaroLlyonesse]

2)Push people out edges (high damage+fall damage = its a good combo)

This being a high damage combo is not up for debate, but not really something that should be worked around. There are a lot of threads on it, but I think for the most part people would be happy if either a.) fall damage didn't apply, a/o b.) the pusher didn't get bar for it. Although even with that, you'd think that being hit by a shotgun would knock you back as far as getting kicked in the stomach. >.>

The problem isn't my playstyle; I'm not bad at MCH. I absolutely fire Bishop in the same way, and while I snipe the same way on healers, 50y isn't accurate since you'd have to be within 25y to use Drill/AA. It's still really good for retreat kills. I am still willing to argue that An+CS isn't the most OP (12k+3%) since BRD's Apex->Blast is also 12k, provides two utility buffs in AOE, and recharges faster than CS.

It's more there's no core concept for it. High damage is proposed to be offset by low mobility and fragility, but it is on par with other classes while not gaining any of the benefits of it. It feels like some tweaks would bring it closer to concept. If a BRD and DNC both have buffs and higher mobility, and they don't want to give MCH those traits (makes sense as 'lone sniper' although that's not RL accurate), then they should probably switch some things up.

Consider: A BRD should do decent damage and buff the party. A MCH should deal more damage if it has no party utility. Then why does a BRD basic attack deal more damage at range and provide a buff, but MCH gets 'wait 19s before getting to the same damage the BRD has'? And then, OH only lasts 5s and Blast has 1.5s recast. That should be the other way around, or make Heat stacks gain haste until OH triggers.

[flowerfairy]

If we're talking about FL, then every ranged job feels the same way except SMN, SCH, and maybe BLM. DNC freaking sucks, RDM just blows up if they try to melee, SGE blows up too, WHM's only saving grace is imp, AST can't give card boosts to alliance members, BRD is on the same boat as MCH. People call this expansion Meleewalker for a reason.