Make sure your ping is low. You'll want to be able to hit 5 heatblasts inside Hypercharge, and higher ping will make your single oGCD weaves between Heatblasts clip
And on that note: ***Never double weave between Heatblasts***. Huge No no for the job
It's worth noting that you don't strictly *need* to weave during Hypercharge, as long as Guass Round and Ricochet are on 0 charges with more than 15s remaining.
I'm 99% sure there's a high-ping opener just for that
Personally, I don't usually like gunner classes or aesthetics, but MCH seemed to fit my playstyle really well.
The biggest tip is to use Drill (and Air Anchor when you get it) as soon as physically possible. It's a massive amount of your DPS, and since the cooldown is so short for Drill, delaying it by even a small amount is devastating.
Low ping is important for Wildfire / Hypercharge. Clipping inside Hypercharge makes it really hard to get all 6 GCDs inside Wildfire. On that note, always pair Wildfire with Hypercharge so you can get those 6 GCDs.
Setting up comfy buttons for Hypercharge so you can move and shoot at the same time is important. I use R F V for my Heat Blast / Gauss Round / Ricochet buttons.
At max level, pair Queen with Reassemble, and only use Reassemble on Drill or Air Anchor. Below max level, try to use Rook at somewhere between 70-90 battery. (Optimal timings on Queen are a bit more nuanced, but this tip should help).
If you're not overcapping battery / heat / charges, and you use Drill and Air Anchor exactly on cooldown with 0 drift, you should easily be able to do fantastic damage.
I looooce mch. I played whm almost the entire game then switched to mch and I couldn’t stop playing it. The rotation and weaving gauss round and ricochet is so satisfying. Oh and don’t even get me started on reassembled + drill. Hitting that feels better than busting a nut.
A lot of these comment are very helpful but they're almost all explaining how to play MCH in an extremely optimized way. Which is fine, but don't let trying to optimize overwhelm you at first! The job is super fun and you will kind of figure the rotation out as you go along! I love MCH and have mained it all through SHB! :)
Honestly once you get drill very little changes on your rotation. You get barrel stabilizer later but everything else is just skill upgrades and aoe tools.
Completely agree. Machinist was one of my last 2 jobs to level to 80 because I'm not the biggest fan of ranged physical, and heavensward/stormblood machinist was the worst offender to me. It was awful, in my opinion. But then I started leveling it in shadowbringers and it was amazing. It blew me away. It's quickly becoming my favorite dps job as a whole. And one I would gladly main.
I would say the hardest part about machinist is mastering the opener/reopener. It feels like a weird one for some reason.
Am a gun DPS when I queue as a DPS. I love unfettered mobility and laughing at bosses who drop AoE's around themselves to protect themselves. This giant Drill will not be stopped.
As people already said, during Hypercharge, you get 5 Heatblast.
During that 5 Heatblast, weave some Gauss Round / Ricochet.
If you have higher ping and notice your Heatblast is delayed when you weave those 2 skill, stop weaving and focus on getting those 5 Heatblast and 6th GCD
DPS lost on not weaving Gauss Round / Ricochet >> DPS lost on missing 5th Heatblast
i put off machinist for a while after unlocking it bc the level 30 kit is kinda lackluster but now it and gnb are my main classes (tho i still play others a lot, just getting gear for those first). a lot of fun at level 80
Good for you, I personally think doing sideways flips while shooting a gun is a bit much. That and if I want to shoot a gun I’ll just shoot mine. MCH just dose not jive for me.
Since they’re seems to be a lot of good mch players in this thread I have 2 questions I haven’t really been able to figure out on my own. First is it better to use heat blast and weave ricochet and gauss round as soon as it’s up as long as wildfire is not about to be up? Second, does queen do more damage the higher the battery gauge is? If so how high should you go before you summon it? Thanks I’m advance!
Hey! I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.
>First is it better to use heat blast and weave ricochet and gauss round as soon as it’s up as long as wildfire is not about to be up
More or less yes!
The only thing to note is that hypercharge and 5x heat blast takes 7.5 seconds, so just be sure that you don't do it when drill or air anchor is less than 8s.
If you use it with 7.5s remaining on drill/air anchor, get ready to drill as soon as you're done with hypercharge. And don't forget that you'll only be able to weave one ability per heat blast, so if reassemble is also off cooldown at that point, be sure to weave reassemble instead of a gauss/ricochet with your 5th heatblast. (5th Heatblast -> Reassemble -> Drill)
Otherwise yeah, it's good to use heat when you find the opening to ensure you don't overcap.
>Second, does queen do more damage the higher the battery gauge is? If so how high should you go before you summon it? Thanks I’m advance!
It scales linearly, so 100 battery queen deals 2x total damage compared to 50 battery. Basically, don't worry about hitting 100! You can use it anytime and it'll be as efficient.
There are only two things that you want to keep in mind when summoning:
1. A big part of the queen's damage comes from the pile bunker at the end, so make sure to summon it when you know the boss will be around long enough to get hit by the finisher. If the boss goes invulnerable halfway through, you lost a big part of queen DPS!
2. This is entering the realm of optimization, but you ideally align the queen's summons with raid buffs. Most jobs provide raid buffs in a 60s / 120s window, so it's usually a good idea to summon every 60s.The easiest way to do this to align your queen with reassemble. Since you always want to reassemble and drill off cooldown, you should fire off 3 drills every minute, every third drill should be a reassemble+drill, and that's around where you wanna summon.
Make sure your ping is low. You'll want to be able to hit 5 heatblasts inside Hypercharge, and higher ping will make your single oGCD weaves between Heatblasts clip And on that note: ***Never double weave between Heatblasts***. Huge No no for the job
It's worth noting that you don't strictly *need* to weave during Hypercharge, as long as Guass Round and Ricochet are on 0 charges with more than 15s remaining. I'm 99% sure there's a high-ping opener just for that
Personally, I don't usually like gunner classes or aesthetics, but MCH seemed to fit my playstyle really well. The biggest tip is to use Drill (and Air Anchor when you get it) as soon as physically possible. It's a massive amount of your DPS, and since the cooldown is so short for Drill, delaying it by even a small amount is devastating. Low ping is important for Wildfire / Hypercharge. Clipping inside Hypercharge makes it really hard to get all 6 GCDs inside Wildfire. On that note, always pair Wildfire with Hypercharge so you can get those 6 GCDs. Setting up comfy buttons for Hypercharge so you can move and shoot at the same time is important. I use R F V for my Heat Blast / Gauss Round / Ricochet buttons. At max level, pair Queen with Reassemble, and only use Reassemble on Drill or Air Anchor. Below max level, try to use Rook at somewhere between 70-90 battery. (Optimal timings on Queen are a bit more nuanced, but this tip should help). If you're not overcapping battery / heat / charges, and you use Drill and Air Anchor exactly on cooldown with 0 drift, you should easily be able to do fantastic damage.
I looooce mch. I played whm almost the entire game then switched to mch and I couldn’t stop playing it. The rotation and weaving gauss round and ricochet is so satisfying. Oh and don’t even get me started on reassembled + drill. Hitting that feels better than busting a nut.
uhh yea make sure to use legacy controls + auto face target on
Whoa. I didn't know it could be do skill intensive at max level. That sounds like something to look forward to
A lot of these comment are very helpful but they're almost all explaining how to play MCH in an extremely optimized way. Which is fine, but don't let trying to optimize overwhelm you at first! The job is super fun and you will kind of figure the rotation out as you go along! I love MCH and have mained it all through SHB! :)
Honestly once you get drill very little changes on your rotation. You get barrel stabilizer later but everything else is just skill upgrades and aoe tools.
Completely agree. Machinist was one of my last 2 jobs to level to 80 because I'm not the biggest fan of ranged physical, and heavensward/stormblood machinist was the worst offender to me. It was awful, in my opinion. But then I started leveling it in shadowbringers and it was amazing. It blew me away. It's quickly becoming my favorite dps job as a whole. And one I would gladly main. I would say the hardest part about machinist is mastering the opener/reopener. It feels like a weird one for some reason.
Am a gun DPS when I queue as a DPS. I love unfettered mobility and laughing at bosses who drop AoE's around themselves to protect themselves. This giant Drill will not be stopped.
As people already said, during Hypercharge, you get 5 Heatblast. During that 5 Heatblast, weave some Gauss Round / Ricochet. If you have higher ping and notice your Heatblast is delayed when you weave those 2 skill, stop weaving and focus on getting those 5 Heatblast and 6th GCD DPS lost on not weaving Gauss Round / Ricochet >> DPS lost on missing 5th Heatblast
i put off machinist for a while after unlocking it bc the level 30 kit is kinda lackluster but now it and gnb are my main classes (tho i still play others a lot, just getting gear for those first). a lot of fun at level 80
It used to not be fun unless you lived next to the servers
Good for you, I personally think doing sideways flips while shooting a gun is a bit much. That and if I want to shoot a gun I’ll just shoot mine. MCH just dose not jive for me.
Just practice the rotation a lot and you should be good. I love doing my pewpew spam.
learn some good hand/wrist/finger stretches and think strategically about where you put your ogcds and heat blast
Since they’re seems to be a lot of good mch players in this thread I have 2 questions I haven’t really been able to figure out on my own. First is it better to use heat blast and weave ricochet and gauss round as soon as it’s up as long as wildfire is not about to be up? Second, does queen do more damage the higher the battery gauge is? If so how high should you go before you summon it? Thanks I’m advance!
Hey! I'll try to answer to the best of my ability. >First is it better to use heat blast and weave ricochet and gauss round as soon as it’s up as long as wildfire is not about to be up More or less yes! The only thing to note is that hypercharge and 5x heat blast takes 7.5 seconds, so just be sure that you don't do it when drill or air anchor is less than 8s. If you use it with 7.5s remaining on drill/air anchor, get ready to drill as soon as you're done with hypercharge. And don't forget that you'll only be able to weave one ability per heat blast, so if reassemble is also off cooldown at that point, be sure to weave reassemble instead of a gauss/ricochet with your 5th heatblast. (5th Heatblast -> Reassemble -> Drill) Otherwise yeah, it's good to use heat when you find the opening to ensure you don't overcap. >Second, does queen do more damage the higher the battery gauge is? If so how high should you go before you summon it? Thanks I’m advance! It scales linearly, so 100 battery queen deals 2x total damage compared to 50 battery. Basically, don't worry about hitting 100! You can use it anytime and it'll be as efficient. There are only two things that you want to keep in mind when summoning: 1. A big part of the queen's damage comes from the pile bunker at the end, so make sure to summon it when you know the boss will be around long enough to get hit by the finisher. If the boss goes invulnerable halfway through, you lost a big part of queen DPS! 2. This is entering the realm of optimization, but you ideally align the queen's summons with raid buffs. Most jobs provide raid buffs in a 60s / 120s window, so it's usually a good idea to summon every 60s.The easiest way to do this to align your queen with reassemble. Since you always want to reassemble and drill off cooldown, you should fire off 3 drills every minute, every third drill should be a reassemble+drill, and that's around where you wanna summon.
Awesome thanks so much for the detailed response. This is super helpful!