Hi, Level 211 Mechanic Main here. Speaking here from pure experience from myself and friends who were playing the classtill 12x-13x:
Homing Beacon is a decent skill for the early area, around 60, to hit monsters above you since the 1st and 2nd jobs are extremely dull and slow. In the past you benefit from the Atomic Hammer skill which had some range above that could hit monsters, including doing actual dmg where you have today a crummy advanced gatling gun that feels very slow. Having a summon already which does fine damage neither helps since the summon is stationary, short-ranged and is unable to hit monsters above/below them.
Homing Beacon works as replacement for the very dry gameplay of Mechanic since it hits monsters above, attacks four enemies and has a scaling of 350%, so it's okay for a 2nd job skill. That's also where the good part of homing beacon ends; because the skill is not like you'd guess from other classes a toggle but it's a regular skill, so you keep spamming the skill button like you used to do that 10 years ago with other classes in pre-BB. Great, isn't it?
The skill receives two passives, one to increase the damage, the other to hit more enemies. Additionally you get your Lv 150 hyper Full Spread to even spread more missilies which seems okay at the end, because the skills turn the Homing Beacon skill from a mobbing skill to a bossing skill, right? Well, I have to disappoint you: Tank Mode decreases the damage to 60% (I am unsure if they mean by 60%, and if you're wondering about english: this IS a big difference if something gets decreases TO or BY 60%.) and Full Spread does the same in replacement of having six more shots. You are going to use both anyway but I will come to that soon. So the fairly good bonus of 500% damage you get in your third job gets completely negated because you want to shoot more rockets.
The passive increases the Homing beacon damage for 500%, since it explicity says Homing beacon damage it either be 850% or 2100% each rocket, it's described very poorly. either way, these are scalings you can work with, let it be while mobbing or running bosses. Now if we add Tank Mode or Full Spread the damage gets decreased TO 60%. What a bummer. So the rockets in Tank Mode does 4x 60% damage - because you do NOT get more rockets with Tank Mode, the only thing it does is focus a single target to shoot all its rocket on that target, otherwise it would attack it once - which result in 240% damage. This is not even half of the damage you would do with the passive you get in the same job. In the next job you get the passive to shoot five more rockets in both modes, which means in the Tank mode you get a total fo 9 rockets dealing 60% in this state, with a total number of 540% on a single target. This is still quite bad considering how much damage you would technically have by the passives. Finally you get with level 150 the hyper skill Full Spread which also does decrease the damage to 60% but does not stack with the tank mode, so using it keeps you in both modes at 60%, ideally you use it while Tank mode to focus the rockets on one target. You can shoot six more rockets while Full Spread which makes a solid number of 15 rockets dealing 60% damage, that is 900%. This is somewhat okay but still sucks compared to other classes and the fact you have Full Spread up for 10 seconds, so that is your burst skill.
The punishment to use Tank Mode/Full Spread is way too big and inconvinient for anything. not to say that you do not use Homing Beacon after the third job for mobbing but bossing only, because the idea to smash your key for the rockets that also attack a single target once unless in Tank Mode or Full Spread is horsecrap. Additionally, if you are running in your regular Mech form and you use your Homing Beacon skill, it shoots one rocket. And, that's it. Another hilarious skill design is that the rockets explodes, assuming that enemies in the near might get affected by that BUT NOPE it straight attacks the one enemy you targeted. So what would a main of this class suggest?:
Decrease the penalty for using Tank Mode/Full Spread; the damage should be decreased to 100%, instead of 60%. Currently it is significantly weaker in Tank Mode/Full Spread throughout.
Change the behaviour of Homing Beacon via mode; In mech mode they should be automated and can be toggled on/off, in Tank Mode you have to press the skill button to shoot them. Ideally you have a clear usage and (dis)advantages for both modes.
Increase the duration of Full Spread; give it straight five seconds more because Mechanic is still garbage tier in puncto damage, also 100 seconds of cooldown is terrible for what you get currently.
Add Boss Damage to Full Spread; You will ever use this skill for bosses only, adding 15-20% more damage to bosses is a fine addition to become anyhow relevant in boss fights.
Add detonation damage to rockets; because it's nonsense they do not do this already when all their summons DOES explosion damage. Explosion damage hits once with half of the percentage you have in the moment of shooting the rockets. Enemies who have been attacked by rockets do not receive explosion damage obviously.
hope I could give some of you a little input how wrong the skill is.
I can confirm this happened to me too. However, I've let the time run out and re-entered again. It worked for me afterwards. Haven't restarted computer or maple client.
