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

[Emitans]

It's a little sad to read people actually suggesting MCH to get more focus on enemy debuffs, which the class was essentially designed as in HW (dismantle, rend mind, suppressive fire, head graze, leg graze, foot graze, hypercharge turret vulnerability up, and in pvp: between the eyes, stun gun). We're coming to a loop.

My secret is that half my suggestions for this game are just things we had in HW and StB.

[Carighan]

My secret is that half my suggestions for this game are just things we had in HW and StB.

As always, people keep hyping class-design of HW and SB, but merely because you need to look across the pond more. "Machinist already was a debuffer" is technically true. But their debuffing back then was so mechanically rubbish and design-wise unusable, it's no wonder it got removed. Instead, look at how other games do "debuffer" as a job (and more importantly, look at why Debuffer was one of the three MMORPG class roles that got dropped when the genre shifted from 6 roles to the 3 roles that now form "the trinity", that's important). Or why they don't. And what remained, which is DoT-centric jobs, they cause a ton of debuffs, but their point is that they're a DPS dealer that uses multiple stacked and/or constantly cared-for DoTs to deal their damage.

Which IMO is doable if you want a "debuffy" feel, but also would totally not fit Machinist as a concept. Even if one were to make the Flamethrower the primary identity.

(edit: Sorry, this is such a pet peeve of mine. As if the absolutely rubbish way jobs worked in HW and SB would be in any form usable in a game that doesn't want to feel like it's 2001. As if just having more skills on your hotbar somehow makes a game "better" to play, ignoring the very concept of complexity vs depth and/or how games with just 2-3 buttons still achieve deep gameplay systems from them. As if RPG-y identity cannot be separate from mechanical implementation, or in fact has to be for an MMORPG. HW and SB are, if anything, a huge part of why the game feels so wonky nowadays, because they tried to push it into a direction which even back then was long outdated and proven to not work. Other MMORPGs existed - and exist. We can look at what worked and didn't work. And nowadays players talk as if bringing that back would be a good thing. Sorry, but... what?!)

[Valence]

As always, people keep hyping class-design of HW and SB, but merely because you need to look across the pond more. "Machinist already was a debuffer" is technically true. But their debuffing back then was so mechanically rubbish and design-wise unusable, it's no wonder it got removed. Instead, look at how other games do "debuffer" as a job (and more importantly, look at why Debuffer was one of the three MMORPG class roles that got dropped when the genre shifted from 6 roles to the 3 roles that now form "the trinity", that's important). Or why they don't. And what remained, which is DoT-centric jobs, they cause a ton of debuffs, but their point is that they're a DPS dealer that uses multiple stacked and/or constantly cared-for DoTs to deal their damage.

Which IMO is doable if you want a "debuffy" feel, but also would totally not fit Machinist as a concept. Even if one were to make the Flamethrower the primary identity.

(edit: Sorry, this is such a pet peeve of mine. As if the absolutely rubbish way jobs worked in HW and SB would be in any form usable in a game that doesn't want to feel like it's 2001. As if just having more skills on your hotbar somehow makes a game "better" to play, ignoring the very concept of complexity vs depth and/or how games with just 2-3 buttons still achieve deep gameplay systems from them. As if RPG-y identity cannot be separate from mechanical implementation, or in fact has to be for an MMORPG. HW and SB are, if anything, a huge part of why the game feels so wonky nowadays, because they tried to push it into a direction which even back then was long outdated and proven to not work. Other MMORPGs existed - and exist. We can look at what worked and didn't work. And nowadays players talk as if bringing that back would be a good thing. Sorry, but... what?!)

Mechanically rubbish in content that didn't make use of it.
Which didn't include dungeons (you had a stun or an interrupt!), and all that so called useless stuff suddenly shone in content like palace of the dead or eureka with all the crowd control.

I wouldn't mind a debuffer role or whatever if it's done right, but you're discarding the things we had in a game that didn't even have such a debuffer role just because it doesn't reach your standards of debuffing. I'm all to get those upgraded with a robust system accounting for it behind so I don't see why you'd shoot down the very things that were still better than nothing and could be so much more?

I'm sorry if this hurt your pet peeve of yours but yes, I do swear by HW's design even with its flaws, because at least it was fun, engaging, and interesting in comparison to what we have today. But if what you want is what we have today, then by all means, continue shooting down HW's design because that sure as hell sounds like what SE has been doing all those years whenever something could have been improved by deleting it instead out of convenience.

[Shurrikhan]

As always, people keep hyping class-design of HW and SB, but merely because you need to look across the pond more. "Machinist already was a debuffer" is technically true. But their debuffing back then was so mechanically rubbish and design-wise unusable, it's no wonder it got removed. Instead, look at how other games do "debuffer" as a job (and more importantly, look at why Debuffer was one of the three MMORPG class roles that got dropped when the genre shifted from 6 roles to the 3 roles that now form "the trinity", that's important). Or why they don't. And what remained, which is DoT-centric jobs, they cause a ton of debuffs, but their point is that they're a DPS dealer that uses multiple stacked and/or constantly cared-for DoTs to deal their damage.

Which IMO is doable if you want a "debuffy" feel, but also would totally not fit Machinist as a concept. Even if one were to make the Flamethrower the primary identity.

(edit: Sorry, this is such a pet peeve of mine. As if the absolutely rubbish way jobs worked in HW and SB would be in any form usable in a game that doesn't want to feel like it's 2001. As if just having more skills on your hotbar somehow makes a game "better" to play, ignoring the very concept of complexity vs depth and/or how games with just 2-3 buttons still achieve deep gameplay systems from them. As if RPG-y identity cannot be separate from mechanical implementation, or in fact has to be for an MMORPG. HW and SB are, if anything, a huge part of why the game feels so wonky nowadays, because they tried to push it into a direction which even back then was long outdated and proven to not work. Other MMORPGs existed - and exist. We can look at what worked and didn't work. And nowadays players talk as if bringing that back would be a good thing. Sorry, but... what?!)

I get what you mean here and would likewise prefer we expand our horizons a bit, but to be fair... a lot of what "didn't fit" in HW was more a matter of poisoned chalices coming off the back of late-ARR simplifications than anything fundamentally dysfunctional. We started dungeons off frequently able to do tankless and sometimes even healer-less runs (slower, typically, but feasible) specifically because CC was still a thing back then.

It was simply more work to allow for that degree of freedom, and so they axed even the barest options as to put that potential they might otherwise be expected to fulfill out of sight and out of mind.

Moreover, though...

and more importantly, look at why Debuffer was one of the three MMORPG class roles that got dropped when the genre shifted from 6 roles to the 3 roles that now form "the trinity", that's important

"Debuffer" has never been a role any more than "Buffer" or "Zone Defense" or "Trapper" or an Overwatch "Main Support" (an entirely arbitrary classifier whose qualities shift meta to meta). It's a sub-role of damage, tank, or healer (or, fighter, backline, flex; offense and sustain; or whatever other set act as the primary colors, so to speak, to all else while minimizing overlap between their own essentials) whose label occasionally sees greater use when capacities within its description both get (A) overpowered and (B) rendered redundant or face diminishing returns when having too many of them.

Note: Every debuff either increases enemy damage taken directly or indirectly [damage/offense] or causes enemies to deal less damage directly or indirectly [tanking] (including even by being too stuck to keep uptime) or causes enemies to generate sustain for allies (such as upon allies hitting them) [healing] [both sustain].

That there is a "trinity" of DPS, Tank, and Healer/Support does not mean that each must carry no aspect of the other roles' capacities.

And what remained, which is DoT-centric jobs, they cause a ton of debuffs, but their point is that they're a DPS dealer that uses multiple stacked and/or constantly cared-for DoTs to deal their damage.

This is not a debuffer. It's simply, unless compensatively balanced to some benefit in greater total damage over time, a worse DPS, since it has less control over the dynamics of their damage and is more vulnerable to both overkill and cleanses. If the only things the debuff accomplish is damage, its carrier's role is just Damage.

Just as if every debuff were just damage suppression, its output role would just be Mitigation. Add to even the barest bonus threat/enemy_targeting manipulation and further on-self or on-target scaled sustain and you've got a Tank.

The only reason to call something a "Debuffer" over a primary role is if it's a hybrid that acts through debuffs, such that those debuffs describe its kit better than any among Damage, Tank, or Healer.

[Carighan]

Oh I might have worded that badly, my point was exactly that what remained of the pre-WoW Debuffer/Debilitator role is nowadays just a different DPS flavor, based around, well, debuffs (in the sense that they place debuff icons on enemies, not that they make the enemy weaker). It's not that role any more, but it's important to note that in modern MMORPG design, this is what the role turned into, a skin/flavor of DPS. Not in FFXIV, we don't even have a DoT-centric class and the two that got closest were still not at all that, but other MMORPGs such as WoW or GW2 or so have DoT-centric classes.

Still, not a debuffer. Sorry, should have worded that better. :<

[mallleable]

Why give MCH a raid buff when the sniper rifle is right there?? Just give MCH the sniper rifle from PVP, and let it deal like a bazillion damage, and would help MCH just as well as a raid buff.

[Shurrikhan]

Probably because DPS tends to be your most "filler" role. There's a limit to how much uptime you can meaningfully rotate through tanks per their CDs and active miti, and a limit to how much healing there will need doing without specifically bad play. There's no such limit applied around killing shit faster. As such, DPS tend to have the most room for hybridization in the role, especially when the game has few short DPS checks.

/shrug

[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).