Machina : pros and cons in pvp

[pancimania]

Machina somehow become extremely feared in most 1v1 pvp situation, and majority of them complain about it's high SA and nasty SaB. it have decent mobility and have very high airtime, so you might lost track of their movement because of very high jumping skill. everytime i saw people getting combo by machina, is neither they are too close or they are unable to track down their position, so i write some basic guide from my personal experience while combating machina.

machina have 2 specialization, one is defensio, other is ruina. while ruina can dish lots of dmg with her skill, defensio are easily catching unprepared foe thanks to his time bomb skill and incerased armor. if you fight machina often, you might notice that ruina is easier to deal with than defensio, especially if you are used to play agaisnt old times mercenary, it makes only little difference because of short range, high armor nature of this class

in general, class with high mobility and high SaB excel agaisnt this class, example is ripper, acrobat, lancea, and kali in general. while low mobility might having lot of trouble dealing with this class, like cleric in general. Academic and sorceress, are kinda mixed effectiveness, cuz she have very high AoE but quite low mobility. gladiator and moonlord while having high mobility, are facing difficulties because their skill not strong enough to break this class armor, destroyer and barbarian while have high armor break, their own armor is quite low compared to this class.

in general, here was tips and trick from my own experience, maybe not good, so feel free to add information in reply:

-machina relies heavily on lariat,the charging skill for machina, this skill is very scary. only very few skill from each class capable to deal with this lariat. the good thing is, this one range is average, and if you can anticipate this skill because of their skill sound (which didnt give any surprise effect, but make terror effect ;v)
no matter what class you use, avoiding this skill is top priority. do not try to cancel this skill, it almost useless unless you have skill with tanking, armor break, and quite fast (example,halfmoon for moonlord, cuz i was moonlord).

-lariat usually mixed with another skill that slams the ground, which have insane amount of armor break effect. combined, and this one are very deadly. yet majority of people tend to use aerial evasion too early so they become easy prey for this class. the good idea is count their skill if they catch you. estimate around 3 or more skill she cast before cast your ae (or count around 4 seconds and more if you lost track of her skill), your best option is while they use aerial escape when they use any kind of jumping attack. remember that you need to use tumble after ae, to give extra range, so ensure your tumble is ready before using ae.

-getting hit is okay,lifted is okay, but trapped is not. you might lose some health fighting this class, but ensure you are able to stand up or escape is top priority. they didnt have insane dmg per skill, their dmg relies on combo base counter, at best you might lose less than 20% if you can escape properly, but if you are trapped, just double the number and you know how problematic is it.

-aside from lariat,most of her other skill didnt have insane super armor break, they are only tanky, and short range. if you know how to use tumble properly, you can avoid getting comboed to death. Hit and run is your best friend, since nature of this class is short range. you didnt need to cancel her skill, just ensure your skill is hit. it will slowly and surely drain her hp.

-trapping method is extremely useful, just remember your powerful skill and make sure you hit them with that. it rarely dish 100% dmg, but it will drain her hp. a good combatant will try to trap machina with his powerfull skill (example, accurate crecent cleave didnt gonna stun them or make them flinch, but they will absorb full dmg from cleave). or you can trap with fast counter that send them to air, gladiator can use their line drive short version for this use, or fa. guardian and crusader can use armor break, etc.

-they have land based counter, not aerial counter, baiting this skill is more important than baiting her ae, since they will make full use of this counter skill, combined with her close range nature make this one deadly combination.

-while facing them, you might notice they usually use jumping based attack, this one exclusive for this class, no more to say. it was best to avoid getting hit, since only few skill can hit airborne attack. this was doubled with their capability to relocate themself while airborne, making extra use for this class.

-defensio have some "time bomb" skill that mark you. this one cannot be avoided, but they cannot control this one explosion. it give some faint blinking red light on your character head. remember to make distance while blinking become faster, as it was the sign to explosion. do not attempt to cast precicious skill too, since this one cancel almost all skill.

i think tis was all i can write, hope this one help, and have fun

[pancimania]

(reserved)

[NearLawlet]

aside from lariat,most of her other skill didnt have insane super armor break

Kidney Blow, Flow Through, Overheat, Taunting Blow all have more than 1600 SAb. With EX upgrade, those skills can have more than 2200 SAb which is more than enough to break nearly everything in the game.

And Lariat is arguably one of the best opening skills in PVP due to its relatively low cooldown (10 seconds), high mobility, 600 SA and 1650 SAb.

[Kuru]

Gonna touch on a few things that I feel cannot be left unchanged as it'll cause MANY misconceptions for people who fight machinas.

First off -

remember that you need to use tumble after ae, to give extra range, so ensure your tumble is ready before using ae.

This should never be stock-standard advice, tumbling after aerial evading is the most predictable and easy thing to punish. Giving people advice like this will steadily build up the habit to tumble after an aerial evasion, often resulting in them losing many a game where they could have won but were unable to do so due to being punished when the enemy was aware they'd tumble after every evasion. For example, if the machina were to use Lariat after an aerial skill, that's game over then because they've already tumbled. The proper method (and this works for all classes) is to watch the enemy, wait until they're casting a skill with a decently long animation lock (that cannot be cancelled) or a skill which is simple to avoid, you wish to then evade out and capitalize on the chance to counter. You should never go by the rule of "always tumble when you aerial evade" as too many good players will notice this trend and punish it every time.

getting hit is okay,lifted is okay, but trapped is not. you might lose some health fighting this class, but ensure you are able to stand up or escape is top priority. they didnt have insane dmg per skill, their dmg relies on combo base counter, at best you might lose less than 20% if you can escape properly, but if you are trapped, just double the number and you know how problematic is it.

I feel this was written without much thought honestly. Being lifted is not okay, because that means you've just lost an evade, and that means they've got pressure advantage. And as for "trapped", Machina's damage comes from damage inheritance while using her auto combos. Getting lifted at all will melt 30-40k HP for many classes and creates an insane amount of mental pressure to just eat 40k on the off chance they lift you. Getting lifted against a machina is unavoidable but should be something to keep an eye out for, easily.

aside from lariat,most of her other skill didnt have insane super armor break, they are only tanky, and short range.

NearLawlet covered what i was going to cover pretty much so I won't harp on it too much but, I will add onto his list that stomping -> follow up melts SA aswell... just saying.

trapping method is extremely useful, just remember your powerful skill and make sure you hit them with that. it rarely dish 100% dmg, but it will drain her hp. a good combatant will try to trap machina with his powerfull skill

So... combo'ing?

while facing them, you might notice they usually use jumping based attack, this one exclusive for this class, no more to say. it was best to avoid getting hit, since only few skill can hit airborne attack

Not going to lie, i don't fully understand what you said here but I'll still try my best. Aerial based attacks on Machina include:

- Beat Down
- Leap Over
- Flying Knee Kick
- Beyond the wall

Of these, the only nonpunishable one is Beyond The Wall (as it allows them to flip out of range). The rest can be easily punished with experience and practice. And as for "it's exclusive to this class", many other classes take advantage of airborne skills, mainly Silver Hunter, Dark Summoner, Soul Eater, Dark Avenger.

defensio have some "time bomb" skill that mark you. this one cannot be avoided, but they cannot control this one explosion. it give some faint blinking red light on your character head. remember to make distance while blinking become faster, as it was the sign to explosion. do not attempt to cast precicious skill too, since this one cancel almost all skill.

There's so much wrong with this so I'll try my best.
1) The skill is called Taunting Blow.
2) It CAN be avoided, you can dodge when she places the mark on you or iFrame stack to dodge the 3x explosions at the end. Saying "It cannot be avoided" is completely false.
3) They CAN control when it explodes to a certain degree. If they right click the moment they connect with you, it'll explode instantly. Apart from that the mark will take roughly 12 seconds before exploding.
4) Casting skills can sometimes be what saves you, creating distance and just running is often futile as Fly-by is faster than dash. Your best bet will be to lock the machina down so she cannot take advantage of the explosions if you're unable to iFrame them.


Honestly speaking, it's all well and good to offer insight people didn't have on the class but many of the information in this is false or lacking research. Especially when you're creating something to assist people, incorrect information will only cause harm sorry to say.

[pancimania]

yeap, agree this was lacking research ( i only doing this analysis by myself tho, so no wonder this one are messy). i never use machina, yet i fight them often, so i didnt know each skill name, and make it generalized. i guess i make mistake about her armor break, i want to point are her range while using it, and not super high armor so it was possible to cancel with average armor break skill. ae + tumble is common paractice, it was predictable, but the point is how player use it. they can quickly link it, or delaying that combination, or mix with other skill.

all i want to say is, this one are not super scary class, it can be combated properly, and actually the moment you know her pros and cons, this one are quite pitiful class (well this was only personal opinion, so not general opinio of pvp player)

thx for the feedback, i appreciate that, hope this topic help other newcomer player that still confused fighting machina.

edit:
a little question i think, why i rarely see anyone writing guide to do pvp in this forum? i know my writing suck, and i know there are lot of people with better experience than me, but no guide for new player?

[Kuru]

There is one, I uploaded it quite recently... It's called the Zero to hero pvp guide... literally in the exact same topic you created this thread.

[Aimele]

As a Ruina PVP user, let me write something about her skills:
- Fly By + Lariat is the most use skill for PVP as it's has high SAB. This skill the only one that can close the distance between players. But this skill doesn't have high SA and it can be break easily.
- Machina can increase her action speed by using Gear Step (Rock Away /Step Up/Foot Stomping). Everytime each of these skill is used, action speed will increase, but cast animation for Rock Away really slow... I usually only use Foot Stomping as it also has stun chance. Step Up hard to hit target.
- Follow Up Ex. This is best skill for comboing as it's has low CD. Usually cast immediately after Foot Stomping.
- Flow Through Ex. Shoot wind from hand. This skill has high SAB and decent range. Make the opponent fly too far -.-. Slow Cast animation...
- Flying Knee Kick Ex. Good skill with low CD. Instant cast while on air but slow cast when on ground.
- Kidney Blow Ex. Skill with decent sucking AOE. Really slow cast without action speed plate.
- Beat Down. Have good SAB. Faster cast while on air. For Ruina, this skill can be break easily before it can touch the ground, Beat Down Ex for Defensio really great.
- Leap Over. well, not really useful for Ruina.
- Beyond The Wall. Give a little shield when success. Mainly use this skill as emergency movement while on air.
- Air Shove. Block any incoming enemy attacks if successful. Cannot block freeze or any bind skill.
- Overlocking. Healing skill. Machina can full heal very fast at the rate of 2.7k per sec. 182k full HP on respawn.
- Deus Ex Machina (ultimate). Really powerful skill. I'm not sure if this skill bug or intentional, but sometimes it just doesn't give any damage. I-Frame when casting.
Ruina skill
- Overcharge. High SAB and damage, but really long charging unless when in overboost state.
- Overheat Ex. High SAB and damage, but this skill really hard to use. This skill will only success when the 2nd punch hit the target, if not skill fail. Also use a lots of MP.

Conclusion
- Ruina is a class that really great in melee combat as her skills are mostly melee. (Fighting range class especially BM,SH,ML and Adept of course really challenging)
- People usually have trouble fighting Machina as they rarely encounter one and don't really understand how her skill works.
- Machina weak when fighting on slope and stair, many of her skill fail
- Ruina is not a scary class and can be counter by any class.
- Ruina is fun to play class once you know how each of her skills works. Well, work harder to master her.

This is mainly my opinion after a few hundreds respawn PVP that I participate.

[SkitzoRoy]

Just cuz y'all are talking about SA and SAB, I'll chime in.

Machina is a very tricky class to 1v1 against purely because of Gear Step. The CM1 of Ruina's and Defensio's makes Gear Step apply a 50% SA buff for 5 seconds. Now, players who don't know Machina well might not know what Gear Step is, since their isn't a skill called "Gear Step". Gear Step is actually a passive buff given from using Foot Stomp, Rock Away, and Step Up (it's in the description of each skill and would normally only give the Machina 5% more action speed).

This means that anytime a Machina uses Foot Stomp, Rock Away, or Step Up, the Machina will have 50% more SA for 5 seconds. This is what gives Machina a lot of SA, since most of their skills only have 400 or 600 SA. But with this 50% SA buff being active so often, that makes most of their skills have 600 or 900 SA which is considered above average SA compared to every other class. Since Lariat has 600 SA normally, this would give it 900 SA, making this skill even harder to counter for example.

If you plan on countering a Machina, its best to know when their SA is going to be boosted and when it's not.
Because, when it's not boosted, Flow Up, Flow Through, Flying Knee Kick, Beat Down, and Leap Over will only have 400 SA, which most classes can easily handle. For classes that can break 600 SA easily, its also worth knowing too. However, only one of their skills has 1000 SA (Charging Gear/Overcharge). This means that a 1200 SAB attack will be able to cancel any of their skills 99% of the time.

The main SAB skills for Machinas are: Lariat, Foot Stomp, Flow Through, Kidney Blow, and sometimes Beat Down. For Defensios, Taunting Blow as well. For Ruina, Flying Knee Kick EX could be used for SAB as well.

Now, another thing players complain about it is Machina's damage. This mainly comes from their damage transfer. The damage transfer is best utilized when Machinas are comboing, so, highly evasive classes will be able to survive much longer against them. But basically, if you don't allow yourself to be combo'd by a Machina, your HP won't be crying as much.
However, with their Awakenings, I believe they will be losing this damage transfer, so we'll have to see where their damage will come from then.