Machinist is almost perfect but damage sucks

[Reginald_Cain]

Animations clean, flow of rotation is pretty good. The numbers are too low for animation to be this powerful looking. It sounds dumb but when you play viper or any melee machinist numbers confuse me. The only ability that has potency as close to the animation would suggest is full metal field. Square needs to recall how strong drill was in final fantasy 6 on the floating continent or see what circular saw of that size would do to anything at the velocity we fire it. For me it's not as much about wanting machinist to be metal vs. Having the damage make sense. I tolerated summoner being godly in dps during stormblood despite it having a res and raid buffs because it was summoning a death dragon and traditionally a strong class in the series. Machinist like Edgar and gunners like Barrett or Vincent were very strong in their respective game and I'd like machinist to feel as satisfying and nuke centric as samurai. Maybe give it a special debuff that increases damage taken from projectile based jobs so it could run along buffer phys ranged instead of bullying them out. Double phys ranged in my opinion should be viable if a machinist is in play. Its a selfish dps that should be able to take advantage of bard songs and dance partner. Currently it's damage is so low you'd be griefing not going Double melee or caster. Not okay at all.

[Carighan]

It's curious to me that you'd put it exactly like that.

Because I agree, using a gun, I'd expect to deal far more damage per hit. But also, naturally, this implies I'll hit less often, and that'd also fit. Meaning the issue is quite specifically the rotation and its flow. Something like the 1.5s GCD heated state is actively counterproductive, as with a shorter GCD the damage per hit will naturally end up lower. I'd rather have something where I need to aim one or more times before firing a single shot, and all that does is stack escalating damage bonuses on me so that that one shot hits really hard. That'd ultimately still be the same number of button presses per second, just that many do not deal any damage before one deals all the damage combined, resulting in very high hits from some attacks. That'd also give the Machinist a bit of a unique damage profile compared to the rather spammy Dancer and the extremely spammy Bard.

Independent of that damage output is a bit too low, but fixing that would not touch each individual hit number in a meaningful way, which is what I think you're on about.

[Valence]

Partial disagree, the design of the job is the blandest crap and plays like a tank at range. It needs to go, ammo, heat management, skillful wildfires, and raid buffs need be brought back to turn it back into a respectable dps class.
The damage is literally the least of my concerns even if it's bad.

[Reginald_Cain]

I really liked how they moved away from the old ammo system and made it into a more Edgar style job but heat can definitely be improved. Especially with flamethrower not interacting with it. That's a capstone skill it should be better. Raid buffs minus something to make double phys ranged viable paired with machinist being the exception imo. I like the idea of machinist being straightforward like samurai and viper but wish it hit as hard. Besides bigger numbers I want more cohesion with the aoe skils. Autocrossbow should reset the new aoe check and checkmate skill cooldowns like heat blast or better yet cut the button bloat and make autocrossbow the heat spender in both aoe and single target. It has better sound design for a rapid fire skill and is one of edgars first tools. There should be a way to generate battery during aoe outside our 40 and 60 second skills. On that note why did we loose bishop turret but get no aoe attacks on rook or queen? #bring back bug zapper!

[Reginald_Cain]

It's curious to me that you'd put it exactly like that.

Because I agree, using a gun, I'd expect to deal far more damage per hit. But also, naturally, this implies I'll hit less often, and that'd also fit. Meaning the issue is quite specifically the rotation and its flow. Something like the 1.5s GCD heated state is actively counterproductive, as with a shorter GCD the damage per hit will naturally end up lower. I'd rather have something where I need to aim one or more times before firing a single shot, and all that does is stack escalating damage bonuses on me so that that one shot hits really hard. That'd ultimately still be the same number of button presses per second, just that many do not deal any damage before one deals all the damage combined, resulting in very high hits from some attacks. That'd also give the Machinist a bit of a unique damage profile compared to the rather spammy Dancer and the extremely spammy Bard.

Independent of that damage output is a bit too low, but fixing that would not touch each individual hit number in a meaningful way, which is what I think you're on about.

Sounds like you enjoy the sniper fantasy. That's fair. I feel like heatblast looks lame and would be better off being replaced with a proper rapid fire attack animation like autocrossbow. I like that machinist has varied speed and wouldn't mind expanding on it. Perhaps a slow walking cast phase for sniper rifle and a machine gun phase with blazing fast gcd

[Carighan]

Oh a rapid fire could work, if properly expressed (give me a submachine gun, in that case!). But it'd also be a bit of a non-unique damage profile, unless we get hold-down-button skills and some skills get changed to that.

Either way since Machinist is supposed to be a damage-centric job, it ought to have a unique mechanic. I feel the devs consider the 15s CD-refund on the oGCDs to be that, but it's sooooo lame. PvP - as so often - does it better with the cycling nature of the tools button.

[Reginald_Cain]

Oh a rapid fire could work, if properly expressed (give me a submachine gun, in that case!). But it'd also be a bit of a non-unique damage profile, unless we get hold-down-button skills and some skills get changed to that.

Either way since Machinist is supposed to be a damage-centric job, it ought to have a unique mechanic. I feel the devs consider the 15s CD-refund on the oGCDs to be that, but it's sooooo lame. PvP - as so often - does it better with the cycling nature of the tools button.

PVP kits in my opinion more accurately represent the identity of classic jobs. Dark knight spending hp on aoe damage is one example. I understand that there's massive differences in approaching balance to pvp and pve so im indifferent with what we have in pvp being stuck in there. Personally I like the reset mechanic a lot. I wish the animations weren't so choppy when being used back to back. so much gets cancled between gcd 1.5s weave gcd and it ends up looking lame. I'd like to do something like a Mesa peacemaker from Warframe during heat phase. Wildfire has a really unsatisfying animation, damage and isnt aoe despite being a bomb. This skill needs a lot of work or even a replacement.

[Owyn_Addens]

It's curious to me that you'd put it exactly like that.

Because I agree, using a gun, I'd expect to deal far more damage per hit. But also, naturally, this implies I'll hit less often, and that'd also fit. Meaning the issue is quite specifically the rotation and its flow. Something like the 1.5s GCD heated state is actively counterproductive, as with a shorter GCD the damage per hit will naturally end up lower. I'd rather have something where I need to aim one or more times before firing a single shot, and all that does is stack escalating damage bonuses on me so that that one shot hits really hard. That'd ultimately still be the same number of button presses per second, just that many do not deal any damage before one deals all the damage combined, resulting in very high hits from some attacks. That'd also give the Machinist a bit of a unique damage profile compared to the rather spammy Dancer and the extremely spammy Bard.

Independent of that damage output is a bit too low, but fixing that would not touch each individual hit number in a meaningful way, which is what I think you're on about.

This kinda reminds me of the MSQ instances with Koana (who is ostensibly a Machinist given his weapon and animations) where he tends to go slowly and methodically, spending a long time before finally pulling the trigger.

[Shaynos]

They just need to focus more on MCH being support orientated like the other phys ranged, the "greedy" phys ranged just isn't working.
The phys ranged role as a whole is just for numbers and a 1% stat boost right now, its pretty deplorable.
Unless they in 6.0 bring out another phys ranged that mch can be comparative with in that greedy/selfish role, and the role gets a complete rework/tune up. It's going to be like this forever.

[Shurrikhan]

They just need to focus more on MCH being support orientated like the other phys ranged, the "greedy" phys ranged just isn't working.

It works just as fine, fundamentally, as SAM and VPR do (i.e., 2 of top 3 total contribution jobs). It's just undertuned.

The phys ranged role as a whole is just for numbers and a 1% stat boost right now, its pretty deplorable.

Yes. That's what tends to happen to balance when you make roles an arbitrary quota system out of touch with actual positioning requirements. Physical Ranged and Magical Ranged are no more different at this point than Maiming is from Striking.

Unless they in 6.0 bring out another phys ranged that mch can be comparative with in that greedy/selfish role, and the role gets a complete rework/tune up. It's going to be like this forever.

Yes, it will be undertuned until they... tune it appropriately. That's it.

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That being said, I can't agree that MCH is "almost perfect", either. It's almost smooth, but also... flat, mostly featureless. It's not alone in that quality, certainly, but it still feels like it has many a wasted opportunity to be more engaging.

Even if I was sold on how its gameplay works overall at the moment ("Don't overcap, just like anyone else, and don't use Heat within 8s of upcoming CDs," the Job), it at the least needs its active AoEs to be usable over Heat Blast spam at a lower target count.

If I were allowed something of a pipedream, though, I'd go further: make Reassemble actually reassemble your weapon, between shotgun, rifle, and pistol forms. Pistol would be best for readying bankables. Rifle would be best for bursting while not needing mobility while capable of some piercing AoE, and Shotgun decent for mobile ST burst and preferred for AoE. Have the three filler weaponskills depend on weapon type and again be chargeable instead of a inflexible linear combo, possibly with different interrelations across different weapon types.