The State of Machinist in DT - Let's talk about it (again).

[bundythenoob]

I regrettably didn't play MCH during my HW/StB days (I was unhealthily obsessed with DRK/DRG/SCH), so I was unaware of their old debuffer playstyle. it's quite a shame we lost something so integral to RPG gameplay.
After watching some older videos, I'm feeling extra conflicted now, since I actually do hope they return to the slower, debuffer playstyle, but I really enjoy the Wildfire - Hypercharge fast-paced burst phase of the job, and I wouldn't want that to go away either.



thanks for enlightening me [: I really wish the PhysRng role got the treatment it deserves. In other games, having a strong buffer/debuffer for the party is great, since not everyone plays DPS just for "big # good".
Some of us like being supporters for our friends, and MCH deserves a way to support their team, whether it be through a raidbuff or thru enemy debuffs

[Valence]

I regrettably didn't play MCH during my HW/StB days (I was unhealthily obsessed with DRK/DRG/SCH), so I was unaware of their old debuffer playstyle. it's quite a shame we lost something so integral to RPG gameplay.
After watching some older videos, I'm feeling extra conflicted now, since I actually do hope they return to the slower, debuffer playstyle, but I really enjoy the Wildfire - Hypercharge fast-paced burst phase of the job, and I wouldn't want that to go away either.



thanks for enlightening me [: I really wish the PhysRng role got the treatment it deserves. In other games, having a strong buffer/debuffer for the party is great, since not everyone plays DPS just for "big # good".
Some of us like being supporters for our friends, and MCH deserves a way to support their team, whether it be through a raidbuff or thru enemy debuffs

Wildfire used to be fast paced too because of Rapid Fire, which used to be the source of most complaints back then because of the 1.5s recast + packed weaving slots to be extremely latency unfriendly, and suggestions were brought to introduce stacks instead of the timer, which they refused to do until way later (Endwalker MCH). Though the job definitely was lower APM because we spent a lot less time under rapid fire than under current hypercharge/overheat (Rapid Fire was 3 GCDs every minute, so approximately 1/12th of uptime vs the 20-25% of today).

Either way the bursts were a lot more "thoughtful" in nature because they had no really fixed unique pattern due to the rng, and the job couldn't also fill it with unique static nukes like FMF, Chainsaw, etc. Stormblood MCH for instance asked you to clearly identify the state of your procs before entering WF which would then inform of the pattern you'd go for to max out the potency inside the burst. This made WF bursts very hectic because of their tightness combined with what people called playing piano back then (it wasn't just mashing heat blast). HW MCH was a lot more freeform in nature because of having more ammo capacity at once combined with a lot more variables and a batshit insane amount of self buffs (which I'm glad they cut through), and since WF was on a 90s recast, it was about alternating full ammo wildfires and what we called ammoless "mildfires" that didn't align with reloads and relied almost exclusively on proc rng. SB MCH tried to replicate this at release with barrel stabilizer being on a 120s recast which meant that every odd minute wildfire couldn't be overheated (to avoid going back to unheated shots without stabilizer to go back to 50+ heat), something they changed very early because it made the job way too complicated and unrewarding for most players.

I do appreciate that BRD and DNC still hold some of this non static, changing burst gameplay but even them are starting to lose it and feel hollow at the profit of fixed nukes slowly filling up the burst to ensure it's not subject to rng.

The big difference with today also lies in the filler of the job, where back then it was less about the occasional hypercharge and trying not to drift tools (and hate yourself if you missed an anchor or chainsaw coming out of cd), and more about managing your procs and ammo which was a neat little loop (on top of not overheating outside of burst in SB).

The debuffing nature of the job became already an afterthought in Stormblood with the removal of Head Graze, Suppressive Fire, Rend Mind (consolidated into Dismantle), etc, but it kept dismantle and the hypercharge turret vuln debuff, which both were removed in ShB+ (until they reluctantly reintroduced dismantle mid Endwalker because guess what, rphys and MCH sucked).