I'll not bother talking about damage balance as it is being discussed in many other threads already. Ranged physical damage is a problem.
No, I want instead to share my feedback on how I see the job in Shadowbringers after theorycrafting for it a bit on the balance and after 4 months playing it at high level in savage. I want to also point out that I played it at high latency in Stormblood for 2 years, as well as one year during Heavensward.
1. Latency
First, let's get the elephant in the room out of the way: MCH is still the highest latency punishing job, and has been since Stormblood. It has gotten even worse in Shadowbringers: removing the flamethrower overheat very tight trick didn't improve anything since the real culprit, Rapid Fire, was turned into Heat Blasts and is used 6 times more every minute.
Added to that, when hypercharge ends, it disables the use of heat blast, making it a hard cap for players clipping heavily due to lag. This creates a huge amount of stress for players with bad internet or that just are infortunate enough to live away from the game servers. Missing the last Heat Blast because of latency feels horrible, since the skill just deactivates and nothing happens, leaving you dead in the water with nothing that went up.
On top of this, you have wildfire every 2 minutes. Wildfire is tighter than hypercharge/heat blasts by essence and proves very finicky near the very end of its duration, which hasn't changed since Heavensward. And as if it wasn't enough, we can't end Wildfire on tools like Drill or Anchor because those seem to have a delay in registration, which can cause them often not to be compiled into WF.
I've been for years on the MCH balance section and see countless players showing up with latency issues, trying to find how to reduce the amount of stress they face when dealing with a mechanic that constitutes more than 25% of our uptime during any fight. And unlike Stormblood MCH, there is a clear limit where the job just stops being playable, and it's when you can't weave any charge anymore during hypercharges. You start overcapping badly on gauss round and ricochet, and 6 weaponskills under wildfire just turn into a pipe dream.
Then you have the simple double weaves. If you can't double weave without clipping, then you're in for a treat, since MCH gained around 5 more APM in ShB (highest or one of the highest APM job right now) and requires a huge amount of double weaves.
Overall, I can safely say that the job becomes stressful and infuriating as soon as over 50ms of latency (overall), and when you reach 150ms you're getting very close to the point of no return when you are trying to play it seriously. Compared to ShB MCH, SB MCH was a cakewalk with strong, viable, even if less optimal, high ping solutions.
Continue reading...
No, I want instead to share my feedback on how I see the job in Shadowbringers after theorycrafting for it a bit on the balance and after 4 months playing it at high level in savage. I want to also point out that I played it at high latency in Stormblood for 2 years, as well as one year during Heavensward.
1. Latency
First, let's get the elephant in the room out of the way: MCH is still the highest latency punishing job, and has been since Stormblood. It has gotten even worse in Shadowbringers: removing the flamethrower overheat very tight trick didn't improve anything since the real culprit, Rapid Fire, was turned into Heat Blasts and is used 6 times more every minute.
Added to that, when hypercharge ends, it disables the use of heat blast, making it a hard cap for players clipping heavily due to lag. This creates a huge amount of stress for players with bad internet or that just are infortunate enough to live away from the game servers. Missing the last Heat Blast because of latency feels horrible, since the skill just deactivates and nothing happens, leaving you dead in the water with nothing that went up.
On top of this, you have wildfire every 2 minutes. Wildfire is tighter than hypercharge/heat blasts by essence and proves very finicky near the very end of its duration, which hasn't changed since Heavensward. And as if it wasn't enough, we can't end Wildfire on tools like Drill or Anchor because those seem to have a delay in registration, which can cause them often not to be compiled into WF.
I've been for years on the MCH balance section and see countless players showing up with latency issues, trying to find how to reduce the amount of stress they face when dealing with a mechanic that constitutes more than 25% of our uptime during any fight. And unlike Stormblood MCH, there is a clear limit where the job just stops being playable, and it's when you can't weave any charge anymore during hypercharges. You start overcapping badly on gauss round and ricochet, and 6 weaponskills under wildfire just turn into a pipe dream.
Then you have the simple double weaves. If you can't double weave without clipping, then you're in for a treat, since MCH gained around 5 more APM in ShB (highest or one of the highest APM job right now) and requires a huge amount of double weaves.
Overall, I can safely say that the job becomes stressful and infuriating as soon as over 50ms of latency (overall), and when you reach 150ms you're getting very close to the point of no return when you are trying to play it seriously. Compared to ShB MCH, SB MCH was a cakewalk with strong, viable, even if less optimal, high ping solutions.
Continue reading...