The State of Machinist in DT - Let's talk about it (again).

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Originally Posted by Reldhir

It would function like a raid buff but its not a damage scaler it just does damage.

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Wont work, because of a math problem that is not solvable with a non scaling value.

Lets say we get 5x a 10% buff. Thats a net 61%. If we have 6x a 10% buff, it becomes 77%. From just 1 buff, thats a 16% boost, even though the tooltip says 10%.
If you then need to balance MCH in raw damage without a raid boost, that means it has to do that 16% on its own in order to remain competetive in damage.

This then suddenly becomes extremely overpowered in less skilled parties, as now you get effectively that 16% boost for free even if its misaligned buffs. Making that the strongest raid buff in general. Thats why the only fix is giving it a raid buff. Since that is the only thing that scales well in both the top skilled parties, and average, or even normal trials.

Note though, that you can make wildfire store 10% of the damage, and then deal it in 1 hit. This then makes it scale properly. But now you are messing up with groups that parse and want to compete, since that lack of raidbuff will still mean less actual damage, and so you still will be excluded as MCH then. It wont disrupt statics that dont care about logging, but it does disrupt those who care.

You might even think that its a good way to kill those 3rd party tools as its against the ToS, but its also a good way to get a lot of players to leave. Its dangerous for SE to take that risk, since they are still competing with a game where such tools are effectively mandatory. Its important for SE to keep the competetive portion in this game.

So realy, the best solution is a traditional raid buff.

Mmm I'm not sure I follow the math? I thought wildfire was just a simple potency bonus per weaponskill landed. If we have a reduced bonus from party members successfully landing weapon skills then thats how I imagined it working?

I'll admit I didnt think particularly hard about the idea xD was just like "ooo what if... that could be different but the same kinda~" I figured simple potency tweeks could solve balance.

But yes even if it becomes the most powerful general "raid buff" even for low skilled groups. So what? Someone has to be the top. So long as its not so far ahead of all others that it becomes a must have ala 7.0 picto.

I also think its good to have some easier mode jobs for lower skilled players. Of all the things SE has been doing to gut the jobs and make them accessible to lower skilled players. This damage buff seems the least agregious.

Thar being said, I'm not MCH main so I'm not attached to the idea xD but my heart does go out to the MCH friends out there because yall are having a very rough time. Was just a rando idea from a MCH appreciator xD

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Originally Posted by Reldhir

Mmm I'm not sure I follow the math? I thought wildfire was just a simple potency bonus per weaponskill landed.

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It is, but not all rates of application are equal, nor is the value of each point of potency.

MCH would benefit far more from MNK > VPR / NIN > SAM than DRG / RPR / DRK / PLD / WAR / GNB and not at all from any caster (exempting RDM for 3 hits per spender combo). This creates job-stacking issues the likes of original Brotherhood, but now worse so.

Meanwhile, the others wouldn't add their own potency to the Wildfire; they add X per hit of the MCH's potency, which may, due to their lower priority at MCH gear compared to melee so long as MCH produces so much less aDPS (~12 to 15% less), be a fair bit lower.

...All that being said, I'm not sure I'd agree that the best solution is a traditional raid buff. Samurai does just fine without one, and I'm not sure we need yet another buff to stack all at the same time or else risk cascading dps loss from desync. Generic raid buffs have long since lost all originality, and that degree of homogeneity in scaling certainly won't be necessary until Light Party hardcore content is more than just a side-gimmick.

MCH simply needs... a buff. Ideally of about 5% overall, with a significant amount of that bonus affecting AoE as well, while Physical Ranged (including MCH again) get a further ~3% buff atop that and RDM and SMN about an extra ~2%. And all that's more than would be necessary, even -- just... roughly the most ideal.

Worth repeating, but MCH does not need a raid buff. The actions that do get used under raid buffs just need to be buffed by a noticeable amount, and probably the best actions to buff would be its tools, and Blazing Shot as those get frequently used outside of buffs as well. Other changes that need to occur are allowing Wildfire to crit/direct hit, and cleave, and allow Pile Bunker, and Crowned Collide to cleave as well.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

It is, but not all rates of application are equal, nor is the value of each point of potency.

MCH would benefit far more from MNK > VPR / NIN > SAM than DRG / RPR / DRK / PLD / WAR / GNB and not at all from any caster (exempting RDM for 3 hits per spender combo). This creates job-stacking issues the likes of original Brotherhood, but now worse so.

Meanwhile, the others wouldn't add their own potency to the Wildfire; they add X per hit of the MCH's potency, which may, due to their lower priority at MCH gear compared to melee so long as MCH produces so much less aDPS (~12 to 15% less), be a fair bit lower.

...All that being said, I'm not sure I'd agree that the best solution is a traditional raid buff. Samurai does just fine without one, and I'm not sure we need yet another buff to stack all at the same time or else risk cascading dps loss from desync. Generic raid buffs have long since lost all originality, and that degree of homogeneity in scaling certainly won't be necessary until Light Party hardcore content is more than just a side-gimmick.

MCH simply needs... a buff. Ideally of about 3% overall, with more than proportionate amount of that coming from AoE sources, while Physical Ranged (including MCH again) get a further ~3% buff atop that and RDM and SMN about an extra ~2%. And all that's more than would be necessary, even -- just... roughly the most ideal.

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Ahhmmm when I said weaponskills I meant spells too xD basically the GCD skills :P also certain jobs benefitting more or less from buffs has always been true for all raid buffs I don't see why MCH has to be treated any different. Your reasoning can be applied to every raid buff in the game lol.

As far as letting super high skill speed people run away with the wildfire bonus they could just add a hard cap to how many bonuses can be gained just like how the skill currently works. Somewhere slightly beyond what a full team of 2.5s GCD jobs would achieve in order to favour skill/spell speed a little.

Also, the bit about potency scaling with MCH. I don't see what you described as being a problem? Gearing prio in your static would just change slightly to take advantage of MCH "wildfire" certainly that should not be a reason for or against adding new things?

Also, also, when you get right down to brass tacks it really is just a potency bump to mch during burst so it should satisfy those asking for a simple buff to mch output too? XD

Anyways rofl I ended up thinking about it more than the simple off the cuff idea it started as, I'll just leave it at that :P

They nerfed scattergun for no reason at all. The dev team have no idea what this job does

After 3 expansions of buffs and the job still being banned from PFs in relevant content, it's clear that MCH needs a raid buff to function. There's no other solution. Samurai does fine without one because it can be pushed to the top of the charts, and its counterparts have a 5% raid buff at most.

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Originally Posted by brinn12

After 3 expansions of buffs and the job still being banned from PFs in relevant content, it's clear that MCH needs a raid buff to function. There's no other solution. Samurai does fine without one because it can be pushed to the top of the charts, and its counterparts have a 5% raid buff at most.

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So long as no other role outperforms even the 1% stat bonus to every party member that taking at least one Ranger provides, MCH doesn't need to be able to be buffed up to topping the charts. It need only be able to compete in cDPS with BRD and DNC even when not being buffed by DNC (because it won't be, because it's not BLM/SAM/VPR).

Note that SAM also has to compete with a role (melee + BLM) that likewise leaves everyone else in the dust and yet it manages that just fine even when you remove the results of all single-target buffs from its meters. With Dancer being a non-factor, nothing separates the situation of MCH within its role from that of SAM in its role.

MCH getting a raid buff wouldn't be the end of the world by any stretch, but short of Savage 4-man content forcing VPR and SAM, too, to syphon some of their personal power into raidbuffs instead, there is zero need for MCH to give a raid buff.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

So long as no other role outperforms even the 1% stat bonus to every party member that taking at least one Ranger provides, MCH doesn't need to be able to be buffed up to topping the charts. It need only be able to compete in cDPS with BRD and DNC even when not being buffed by DNC (because it won't be, because it's not BLM/SAM/VPR).

Note that SAM also has to compete with a role (melee + BLM) that likewise leaves everyone else in the dust and yet it manages that just fine even when you remove the results of all single-target buffs from its meters. With Dancer being a non-factor, nothing separates the situation of MCH within its role from that of SAM in its role.

MCH getting a raid buff wouldn't be the end of the world by any stretch, but short of Savage 4-man content forcing VPR and SAM, too, to syphon some of their personal power into raidbuffs instead, there is zero need for MCH to give a raid buff.

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I've elaborated about this on the first page. Every new expansion, the game scraps the work the balancing team has done, increasing the ranged tax and heavily favoring melees. Square Enix only work with buffs (PCT case being a rare exception), therefore they're going to buff DNC and BRD for the entire expansion, since any non-MCH buff favors them.

With MCH not buffing other jobs and also not being able to deal high personal damage compared to other pure DPS, the job will be stuck in a loop where it's either super weak or just weak in the meta. This will happen until SE rework the role entirely or give MCH a raid buff.

If you don't believe this, just think about how the job has been performing for the last 3 expansions, and how many times it got buffed. There is 0 chance SE will ever sort this out by keeping it a pure DPS. It takes them until the 3rd tier to do the job justice, and in the next expansion the entire work has to be redone.

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Originally Posted by brinn12

I've elaborated about this on the first page. Every new expansion, the game scraps the work the balancing team has done, increasing the ranged tax and heavily favoring melees.

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MCH isn't competing with melees unless the gap widens so greatly as to be worth both the loss in raidwide constant primary stat benefit and LB generation. It's competing against other Physical Ranged DPS.

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Square Enix only work with buffs (PCT case being a rare exception), therefore they're going to buff DNC and BRD for the entire expansion, since any non-MCH buff favors them.

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If they only buffed the underdogs in pure damage, then likewise NIN, DRG, and MNK would have been buffed to keep up with SAM/VPR, invalidating them. That hasn't been the case though. Nor has it ever been the case for any whole expansion's length.

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There is 0 chance SE will ever sort this out by keeping it a pure DPS.

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Yes, there is. It's at most about 5% short of being balanced against the best in competition in ST, with that 5% needing to include substantial AoE buffs to make it balanced in multi-target fights. None of that has to do with lacking raid buffs, though; it's a simple tuning issue. We got hit with random AoE nerfs that frankly should have been aimed at Dancer, if anyone, and haven't gotten the basic minor potency buffs we need elsewhere.