Machinist Guide

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An up-to-date Machinist job guide is provided by The Balance.

Unlock

To unlock the Machinist Job, players must first have purchased the Heavensward expansion, as well as a Disciple of War or Disciple of Magic leveled to at least level 50. Players will also need to complete the quest Before the Dawn to gain access to Ishgard. From there, players can take the quest Savior of Skysteel to gain access to the class.

Attributes

Outside of the Weapon Damage stat, Machinist's make use of the Dexterity stat to determine how much damage it deals. The Critical Hit and Direct Hit stats are in equal measure for secondary stats, as both play into affecting damage output. However, it is recommended to focus on Critical Hit slightly over Direct Hit. Players should also focus on Skill Speed until they are comfortable with their Global Cooldown speed.

Gearing Up

Machinists use a gun or handgonne as their main weapon and equip gear from the Aiming gearset. Players will be able to purchase gear from vendors every few levels, but gear from dungeons and raids is preferable over this, however. If players are able to afford purchasing the Tomestone gear from the end of each expansion, they will not need to upgrade gear nearly as often, with Tomestone gear being more than enough to carry them through each 10-level gap. If a player is using Machinist as their main job, the Main Scenario Quest rewards should also provide ample gear to get players through to endgame. Otherwise, dungeons and vendors will be the main gearing up method.

Materia

Affixing Materia to your gear will provide a boost to stats, allowing players to augment their Strength and Skill Speed, amongst others. It is important to fully affix Materia to gear, as it can give a massive boost during endgame content.

For Machinists, focusing on Dexterity is key, as the stat determines how much damage the Machinist's weapon can deal. Following behind that, Critical Hit Materia boosts the chances of skills dealing heavy damage outside of Reassemble. Direct Hit is also important as landing a Direct Hit boosts damage by 25%.

Leveling

Machinist becomes available as soon as players can enter into Ishgard, meaning that once they level the class through dungeons, FATEs or other means, if they haven’t done the Main Scenario past this initial unlock point, the main story quests will provide more than enough EXP and basic gear to get players through the story.

If players have finished the Main Scenario, then there are plenty of dungeons available to enter, as well as Daily Roulettes, where a player enters a duty or dungeon at or under the current level of their equipped Job.

Players can also access the Deep Dungeon content Palace of the Dead or Heaven-on-High (Heaven-on-High will only be available once a player reaches level 60 with the job they intend to use to enter). These offer a great way to level up and also let players learn how best to use their job from the very beginning.

EXP Buffs

Players can gain increased EXP through various stacking buffs:

  • Food: Food offers a 3% EXP buff as well as a boost to certain stats. It is recommended that players consume food that offer a bonus to the main stats of their job, in this case Strength.
  • Armory Bonus: the Armory Bonus is a buff that is given to make leveling alternate jobs easier. If a player is using Samurai as a secondary job, this buff will be applied as long as there is a discrepancy in levels between Samurai and a higher-level job.
  • Rested EXP: Rested EXP is given when players spend time in a city state. The EXP bar will fill with a light blue color, indicating that players have at least one level's worth of EXP that will be given out in a percentage bonus to each bit of EXP earned.
  • Grand Company & Free Company Buffs: these buffs are the same with slightly different names. If players are in a Free Company with the requisite level, they can activate this buff. Alternatively, if a player has unlocked Squadrons in their Grand Company, they can undertake various missions to receive a Squadron Battle Manual as a reward, offering another EXP bonus. Note however, that the EXP buffs from the Grand Company and Free Company can not stack.

Class Guide

Machinist is on the easier side to learn. It is a fast-paced job that allows for a lot of movement, keeping the job feeling free and easy to use. The rotation is a little stricter than others, but it makes the job great at buffing and dealing heavy burst damage while keeping the use of its job gauge resources fairly flexible.

The job uses the Heat gauge and the Battery Gauge. The Heat gauge is accrued by using basic skills and is used to activate the Hypercharge skill to enter a burst window. The Battery gauge is used to summon the Automaton Queen at 50 Battery, which will fight by your side based on how much Battery available for skills.

Openers

The important thing to watch is when Wildfire is available. The ability has the potential to deal massive damage and is on a two-minute cooldown, so lining it up with raid buffs and burst windows to take full advantage of this skill is crucial.

Most openers will begin with Reassemble to guarantee a critical hit, followed by the potion that a player has chosen.

It's important to note that Wildfire snapshots any buffs that are up when its cast, not when it explodes. Therefore, it is important to use the skill at the correct time to deal as much damage as possible.

  • General Opener

Best opener on average for most content. It is slightly tighter on timing to be able to maintain the double weave alignment for Wildfire and Hypercharge.

From here, players will exit their potion window and can enter into their rotation.

  • Fast Opener

This rotation is generally used when raid wide buffs come out quickly from other party members. It has a lot of possible optimizations for downtime but won't often be the best option.

  • Low Ping Opener

This opener has very tight timing but is able to employ the full effectiveness of raid buffs on 'Wildfire‘ but requires a very low ping to make effective.

Rotation

Generally, players will want to have their Machinist Global Cooldown around 2.5 seconds. This allows for a perfect loop every two minutes, consisting of eight skills and weaving of off-Global Cooldown skills.

Having this timing allows for using Wildfire as the start of a new rotation since it doesn't change its active time with Skill Speed. This lets players use this as the center for planning for when certain buffs will be activated.

The general rules for the Machinist's rotation are as follows:

  • The opening strings of Global Cooldowns will generally start with Reassemble and Drill and repeat from the Wildfire window.
  • Using and managing the resource gauges efficiently.
  • Using bursts as often as possible with raid wide buffs
  • Keeping the timings for Drill, Air Anchor and Wildfire as strict as possible to avoid having them in different places in the loops of a rotation. This allows for accurate looping.

Pairing of certain skills, like Drill with Reassembly and Wildfire and Hypercharge will help push damage higher and align more naturally within a rotation. When these skills are on cooldown, players can then assume to use Heated Split Shot combos as filler and to accumulate Heat. It is important to note that depending on what content being undertaken, there may be downtimes and breaks in the fight that are long enough to require a player to redo their opening with Drill or other abilities on cooldown. It is possible to recover and return into a normal rotation by simply delaying the use of abilities.

AoE Skills

Each AoE skill is useful depending on how many enemies are attacking in the mob. The priority for these skills is:

Using Bioblaster with two targets will end up dealing slightly more damage over Drill, however if Reassembled is active, using Drill is a much better option. For three or more targets, using Reassembled on Auto Crossbow and Flamethrower will deal more damage and be more efficient in taking out multiple targets.

Automaton Queen and gauges

Having flexibility when using the Heat and Battery gauges is one of the Machinist's strengths. Making sure to not overcap on resources and using them as much as possible in an encounter will help keep DPS high.

One of the most useful tools in the Machinist's arsenal is the Automaton Queen. The Automaton's strength scales based on how much battery gauge is available when summoned. For every 10 Battery in the gauge after summoning, the Automaton gains 230 Potency with 80 potency in the final attack, Pilebunker. With a full gauge, the Automaton can do 2300 potency worth of damage, 800 of which comes out in Pilebunker. It also receives buffs in real time that mirror the players, making it a very powerful tool if summoned in line with raid wide buffs.

Summoning the Automaton Queen in line with buffs is essential but difficult, as the Automaton has a five second animation that plays after it is initially summoned. Therefore, summoning just before buffs come out can be tracked via Reassembly, used roughly every minute if the rotation is done properly. A two-minute rotation generates 160 Battery, meaning every minute an Automaton can be summoned with 80 Battery that also lines up with how quickly raid buffs usually come out.

Again, depending on the fight, there may be downtime or pauses in the battle, in which it is a better idea to delay summoning the Automaton Queen instead of wasting Battery and having to scramble to refill the gauge and get back on track. This comes with both practice and knowledge of the fight.


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