Why do the devs hate MCH so much?

Just bring back gunmage and make it BLM with a gun. Hell, make it more of a BLM than BLM currently is, no Triplecast and long cast times. Make speedy gunmage or crit gunmage a thing.

Still think Flamethrower should work like Phantom Flurry and have like big fire blast finale proc to end it, possibly giving a hefty chunk or battery and heat.

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Originally Posted by Hanayumi

Still think Flamethrower should work like Phantom Flurry and have like big fire blast finale proc to end it, possibly giving a hefty chunk or battery and heat.

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That'd oblige you to stand in place for its full duration, though.

I mean, I guess it'd be a fun... trap? Would be a natural extension of its purpose post-Stormblood, at least.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

That'd oblige you to stand in place for its full duration, though.

I mean, I guess it'd be a fun... trap? Would be a natural extension of its purpose post-Stormblood, at least.

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I mean it would be fine if we could just move while casting like it should've been from the start. Idk how SE didn't saw it coming that a 10s stationary aoe attack would be canceled after 3s cause mobs have also aoes which are placed beneath random players, most likely the mch. But mch aoe is lacking in more than just that, the queen should also deal aoe damage. Especially the finishers. Back then we had a aoe tower but that was taken from us too.

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

I mean it would be fine if we could just move while casting like it should've been from the start.

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It would, and it should have, yeah. That said, I'm still not a fan of balancing the skill around an ending skill if it'd require the cast to come to a natural end (i.e., require its full 10 seconds). Imo, it'd need to be cast after the channel ends/is broken, regardless of time, or we'd be better off just increasing the damage per tick (so, tuning it directly).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

That'd oblige you to stand in place for its full duration, though.

I mean, I guess it'd be a fun... trap? Would be a natural extension of its purpose post-Stormblood, at least.

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Well no... Blu's Phantom Flurry end proc can be triggered early, guess they could tack on insentive beyond damage for holding flamethrower as long as possible.

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Originally Posted by FireMage

Yes it factually does. Learn how proper balance works if you wish to contribute



When their rotations are easier than any melee, yeah it still does

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Proper balance is making sure no job is unplayable, or one is vastly superior to others
Not making a job the worst just because it's easy to play, when the devs are in control of how a class plays.
Thats BAD game design.

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

Proper balance is making sure no job is unplayable, or one is vastly superior to others
Not making a job the worst just because it's easy to play, when the devs are in control of how a class plays.
Thats BAD game design.

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And it's not vast. MCHs competition is DNC and BRD. The difference is not vast. Dismissed

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

Proper balance is making sure no job is unplayable, or one is vastly superior to others

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Then I guess we're at proper balance already?

We have 5 jobs that are presently slightly undertuned, with MCH being the outlier in having no utility beyond its hypermobility (which is of far less [relative] use in modern encounters).

For the majority of percentiles, though, or even just if keeping analysis mindful of biasing at the high end, the top and bottom fall within ~7% of each other.

That said, if the devs aren't willing to offer a skill ceiling to a given class, and that design choice would cause its users to approach the relative performance of its skill ceiling that much faster, it's not reasonable to expect that it could be balanced perfectly even at the highest end of things without being overtuned below that. And a single overpowered job does a heck of a lot more harm on the average player's perceived freedom to play what all they want than a single underpowered one. (Which is not to say that either is okay.)

Tl;dr: MCH, DNC, BRD, SMN, and RDM need very slight buffs. MCH may need slightly more than the rest, even. But jobs like MCH could just as greatly benefit from further depth / a higher skill ceiling if they want tighter high-end balance without creating new and worse balance problems below that point.

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Originally Posted by FireMage

And it's not vast. MCHs competition is DNC and BRD. The difference is not vast.

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That relies on the bail-outs of arbitrary sub-role assignments, which in turn essentially means that Physical Ranged are the only sub-role a party is discouraged from taking two of.

Granted, that also belies the whole mess of physical ranged being, these days, a wholly arbitrary sub-role in the first place that makes no more sense now than, say, randomly splitting NIN and DRG from MNK, RPR, and SAM.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

That relies on the bail-outs of arbitrary sub-role assignments, which in turn essentially means that Physical Ranged are the only sub-role a party is discouraged from taking two of.

Granted, that also belies the whole mess of physical ranged being, these days, a wholly arbitrary sub-role in the first place that makes no more sense now than, say, randomly splitting NIN and DRG from MNK, RPR, and SAM.

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I wouldn't even react to him, he is just trolling all over the forums.

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

I wouldn't even react to him, he is just trolling all over the forums.

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He's not wrong, though, that --for the time being, at minimum-- MCH only competes with DNC and BRD.

That "role" has been given protections that push one Physical Ranged to be taken, but that has then allowed the devs to care so little about their balance against anyone else that parties going for performance would never take two.

It's the devs offering incentive to the effect of "Take however many Physical Ranged you want, but the number must be >0 and <2."

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

I am playing MCH since the job came out in HW and since the beginning i had the feeling that the devs do not care at all about this job.

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uh, a bit of a disgenuis statement seeing it's the one job that has received the most number of major make over since it came out. They were changed so often that in one of the live a community rep even asked Yoshi something like "you have been changing MCH every expansions, will this be last time?" and Yoshi laughed and answer "I think we got this right this time, probably?", he even appologied to MCH players that the class had been changed so much so often.

Granted, they haven't done a good job with the change, but they wouldn't have put in as much work as they did if they don't care about it. MCH receiving major change was kind of a meme until THIS expansion.

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I love the aesthetic of the job but it gets "slowly" really depressing to see MCH always at the bottom even below supports, though MCH is a selfish dps without any utility whatsoever.

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Because it has an identity crisis. The only way to make the current MCH more competitive is you have to give it a cake and let it eat it too. It's a selfish DPS, so naturally people expect high number. But if its number is too high than you literally taking a spit at the face of SAM and BLM who also selfish DPS but have way more movement restriction. That on top of a relative simple rotation doesn't help the case. I won't say it's among the easiest job to play, but comparing to the other selfish DPS MCH rotation depth is a joke.

If you want MCH number to be higher, its mobility gonna have to be neft at the very least. Like ... maybe bringing back the 3.0 MCH as a semi-caster, then you can at least argue for it to have similar number to say ... RDM or SMN.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

If you want MCH number to be higher, its mobility gonna have to be neft at the very least. Like ... maybe bringing back the 3.0 MCH as a semi-caster, then you can at least argue for it to have similar number to say ... RDM or SMN.

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Two jobs with pretty good mobility already?

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

Two jobs with pretty good mobility already?

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Doesn't matter how good you think those 2 jobs' mobility are, the point is MCH is still better. And they also bring support/ultility, that's why you have to make MCH to at least have less mobility then them.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Doesn't matter how good you think those 2 jobs' mobility are, the point is MCH is still better. And they also bring support/ultility, that's why you have to make MCH to at least have less mobility then them.

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Except that mobility simply doesn't matter. This has been the long standing issue for years with the Phys Range. Their mobility has virtually zero impact yet is continuously treated as a massive balancing component. Between the ten fights of Pandemonium, and Dragonsong, we have only two, two fights where Phys Range movement is widely superior to Casters. And those two fights (P7 and P8p1) are both hilariously simple for Melee. In other words, the Melee have the same "advantage" Phys Range are supposed to have: mobility. Now you can argue Casters have to plan ahead in P4 or Dragonsong but that mild amount of planning doesn't justify pigeonholing an entire role with lackluster damage. Especially not when they've essentially dragged down the Casters to their level.

On the subject of Machinist and Summoner, specifically. It's absurd to even try arguing Machinist needs to be hindered when Summoner has two bloody casts in a minute long rotation; three if you don't Swift Garuda. Samurai "casts" more than Summoner but we aren't seeing its damage penalized. At this point, mobility tax is a dated concept that simply isn't justifiable. At least not to the present extent.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Except that mobility simply doesn't matter. This has been the long standing issue for years with the Phys Range.

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Uhm, no. It has only become an issue this tier because the massive hitbox the raid boss have, something that are widely acknowledge both by community and developers. And they already said moving forward this will be recetify. There are a reason the community have always come up with "melee uptime" strat that usually carry more risk to the party. Even this tier, certain mechanic still have optional uptime strat (Ruby 5 in P5S, Exchange 1,2, 4 in P6S), but they're often deemed too risky to be adapted in PF.

I'm playing both DRG and a BRD, if you can convince me mobility simply doesn't matter, than you can also try to sell me a bridge.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

That relies on the bail-outs of arbitrary sub-role assignments, which in turn essentially means that Physical Ranged are the only sub-role a party is discouraged from taking two of.

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And casters. Gee it's like fights are made in mind with 4 melee and 4 ranged

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Uhm, no. It has only become an issue this tier because the massive hitbox the raid boss have, something that are widely acknowledge both by community and developers. And they already said moving forward this will be recetify. There are a reason the community have always come up with "melee uptime" strat that usually carry more risk to the party. Even this tier, certain mechanic still have optional uptime strat (Ruby 5 in P5S, Exchange 1,2, 4 in P6S), but they're often deemed too risky to be adapted in PF.

I'm playing both DRG and a BRD, if you can convince me mobility simply doesn't matter, than you can also try to sell me a bridge.

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You do realize the role bonus was introduced because the dev team literally couldn't balance the Phys Range, yes? In fact, in 5.0, they were so weak it was actually better to drop them entirely and just suffer the 1% loss. They had to panic buff them prior to TEA's release due to have hilariously undertuned all three jobs were. Bard, in particular, has been an absolute mess since Dancer's introduction. And I really don't know what else can be said about the disastrous state of Machinist over the last four years. All because they've been desperately trying to balance a role within arbitrary limitation. Whether it be mobility, ease of rotation or utility. It had repeatedly led to near constant imbalances.

And we've already seen their "rectification" when 6.25 dropped. They slapped on baby buffs after Dancer once again completely dwarfed its counterparts. Now Bard exists while Machinist continues to rot for another patch as they've already said 6.3 will only have the Paladin rework. In other words, they did absolutely nothing about the mobility tax and are hoping people forget about it.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

uh, a bit of a disgenuis statement seeing it's the one job that has received the most number of major make over since it came out. They were changed so often that in one of the live a community rep even asked Yoshi something like "you have been changing MCH every expansions, will this be last time?" and Yoshi laughed and answer "I think we got this right this time, probably?", he even appologied to MCH players that the class had been changed so much so often.

Granted, they haven't done a good job with the change, but they wouldn't have put in as much work as they did if they don't care about it. MCH receiving major change was kind of a meme until THIS expansion.



Because it has an identity crisis. The only way to make the current MCH more competitive is you have to give it a cake and let it eat it too. It's a selfish DPS, so naturally people expect high number. But if its number is too high than you literally taking a spit at the face of SAM and BLM who also selfish DPS but have way more movement restriction. That on top of a relative simple rotation doesn't help the case. I won't say it's among the easiest job to play, but comparing to the other selfish DPS MCH rotation depth is a joke.

If you want MCH number to be higher, its mobility gonna have to be neft at the very least. Like ... maybe bringing back the 3.0 MCH as a semi-caster, then you can at least argue for it to have similar number to say ... RDM or SMN.

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The biggest problem of just a dps buff because it's 'selfish' putting way ahead on the rdps rank, it would literally obliterate DNC and BRD's spots in the phys ranged slot.

As it is nowadays, the best thing we can expect is MCH's rpds numbers be buffed to be nearly equal to the other two... But even that is not enough. BRD and DNC have very useful utility actions for prog groups (especially first weeks) in Curing W, Paean, etc... Why bring a MCH that does the same rdps but doesn't bring anything else to help party survivability?

Ideally on top of the damage partiy with DNC and BRD, MCH needs 2 utility actions.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

All because they've been desperately trying to balance a role within arbitrary limitation. Whether it be mobility, ease of rotation or utility. It had repeatedly led to near constant imbalances.

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You're citing a completely different issue and slap it on as a problem for a different issue. SE doing a bad job at balancing them doesn't mean there isn't a reason for doing them. The reality of the majority of the fight is melee has a set of constrain that range never have to worry about.


If mobility is arbitrary then explain:

- Why there exist melee uptime strat in literally every single tier, including this one. While there is never a range up time strat? 'Cause range don't need it.
- It's common to see a party of 3 range and 1 melee with a 1 range faking melee. Have you ever seen party with 3 melee and 1 range with a melee faking range? I personally never. Now there are have been a few fights where you can bring 3 melee without impacting personal performance, but that's because those fights don't have range mechanic, and they are rare. (Like P2S)

Also, you can't say SMN only have 2 casts and dismiss it as not important. The point is how many cast MCH has? None. Also SMN has 2 attack that requires them to be in melee range, how many attack does MCH has that requires MCH to be in melee range? None. There are time I misjudge the EGI order and end up with Irift when the mech require I'm away from the boss, so I either have to use a few ruin or forgo the 2 melee abilities altogether. Does MCH ever have to make such choice? Never

Sure, we can see them as no difference, but only if you just arbitrary dismiss every difference that's not convenience of your argument.

If Complexity of rotation considered arbitrarily, explain why BLM has constantly been the top DPS despite being a range? And even a good black mage still need some accommodation from the parties to perform optimistically. BLM does pay a range tax, the currency used is their mobility and rotation, rather than potency. This is simply the argument I'm making, MCH, as it is now can not just have a cake and eat it too.

If we disregard both mobility and rotation, are you gonna argue a BRD or DNC should do the same damage as a BLM?

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And we've already seen their "rectification" when 6.25 dropped. They slapped on baby buffs after Dancer once again completely dwarfed its counterparts.

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No, that's not what they said as rectification. They said making the hitbox as big as they are this tier was a mistake, and that's not something they gonna do again. The problem they're referring to is a fight design issue, not a class balancing issue.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Doesn't matter how good you think those 2 jobs' mobility are, the point is MCH is still better. And they also bring support/ultility, that's why you have to make MCH to at least have less mobility then them.

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Shouldn't that be the opposite? If, say, MCH, SMN, and RDM were to all have equal mobility and rDPS (MCH gets a new mobility-constraining way of increasing its damage), SMN and RDM (as jobs that bring support/utility atop their reliability/mobility and rDPS) would still be at an advantage over MCH.

To compare the relative advantages of just RDM and MCH briefly:

• Mobility -> MCH (small difference, varied by encounter).
• Ease of Optimization -> MCH (very small difference, varied by player).
  
  
• Utility -> RDM (relatively large difference; RDM has some of the highest levels of utility*, while MCH has only a single raid miti CD held also by all other physical ranged).
• Damage -> RDM (large enough difference that you almost always get 2 casters or melee instead of 2 physical ranged).

MCH is slightly underfunded either way, but if we were to add damage opportunities that would ultimately constrain their mobility, which would likely also bring its skill ceiling of to (reduce ease of optimization down to) RDM's level, MCH would have more than enough budget to match both utility RDM's utility and damage, too, or faintly exceed its damage while offering less utility, etc.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Shouldn't that be the opposite? If, say, MCH, SMN, and RDM were to all have equal mobility and rDPS (MCH gets a new mobility-constraining way of increasing its damage), SMN and RDM (as jobs that bring support/utility atop their reliability/mobility and rDPS) would still be at an advantage over MCH.

To compare the relative advantages of just RDM and MCH briefly:

• Mobility -> MCH (small difference, varied by encounter).
• Ease of Optimization -> MCH (very small difference, varied by player).
  
  
• Utility -> RDM (relatively large difference; RDM has some of the highest levels of utility*, while MCH has none).
• Damage -> RDM (large enough difference that you almost always get 2 casters or melee instead of 2 physical ranged).

MCH is slightly underfunded either way, but if we were to add elements that constrain their mobility, which would likely also bring its skill ceiling of to (reduce ease of optimization down to) RDM's level, MCH would have more than enough budget to match both utility RDM's utility and damage, too, or faintly exceed its damage while offering less utility, etc.

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Machinist could have two extra actions to buff up its utility:
- A physical counterpart of Magic Barrier
- Palisade back

I've seen people toying with a rez concept for MCH as a battery spender, but a rez would probably create more issues than before.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

Machinist could have two extra actions to buff up its utility:
- A physical counterpart of Magic Barrier
- Palisade back

I've seen people toying with a rez concept for MCH as a battery spender, but a rez would probably create more issues than before.

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Fair enough. That said, I guess just I'd rather start with simply "What seems fun and fitting for a MCH, specifically?" rather than defaulting immediately to mirrors of existing abilities or returned Role Actions, if that makes sense?

Tying a utility into the battery gauge makes it heavily unreliable. The MCH would have to choose between actually using the Queen to do damage, or holding out on it just in case. You either lose damage or lose the utility, and we all know damage is king in this game.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

Tying a utility into the battery gauge makes it heavily unreliable.

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Depends on how sharply the returns on gauge spenders decline when used at less than full gauge.

If a spending 40 gauge at a time between bursts gave as much damage per gauge as spending 100 at a time (so long as one makes sure to have 100 at the ready for the next burst cycle), you'd simply have a base opportunity cost. That'd increase if/when used before too near to raid buffs to regenerate to max gauge, but so long as we're not effectively forced to use our gauge like an inflexible cooldown, it wouldn't outright force any sort of desync.

It'd simply be a utility that comes at cost (likely more than just that of the finisher of uptime it costs RDM or the filler GCD a Swiftcast-Resurrection costs SMN), which then means it needn't be taxed as highly (which means it can be balanced higher for situations that wouldn't make use of it despite retaining that option), much like Ballad/Paeon/Promotion originally.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Fair, enough. That said, I guess just I'd rather start with simply "What seems fun and fitting for a MCH, specifically?" rather than defaulting immediately to mirrors of existing abilities or returned Role Actions, if that makes sense?

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The original 3.0 MCH was good as a "base", if anything it give the class a "unique" style of play. The reason why it was so ill received was because they decide to apply the same style to BRD. Most people playing BRD at the time understandably played it because of the mobility it has, so understandably they got pissed. And I think SE took that as people just don't like the style so when they revert BRD, they also revert MCH. So BRD got its identity back, while MCH ... MCH had nothing, its original vision got scrapped and now it's struggle in the twilight zone between several things while not be able to settle to be anything.


Honestly, over the year it's one of the decision I think most baffling. At that point, BRD was unique in its style, and so MCH. I never understood why they have to insist of making them the same, first by changing BRD style into MCH, then revert MCH style into BRD instead of just developing 2 different unique paths. Note that I never said the 3.0 MCH was good or fun to play, it needed work. But stripping its original vision isn't one of those work.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Fair, enough. That said, I guess just I'd rather start with simply "What seems fun and fitting for a MCH, specifically?" rather than defaulting immediately to mirrors of existing abilities or returned Role Actions, if that makes sense?

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Yep, defnitely. I feel that MCH kinda favor the physical elements, instead of magical, so it would make sense to have Palisade back to help tanks in a different way that BRD can do with Paean.

Or perhaps, instead of an extra mitigation action, it could be an aoe shield, since that would be an unique utility niche, if we don't count Improvisation's shield that can only be usded in a reliable way during downtime.

And Raven2014, Id like to know what utility/support mch brings to the party? Tactician? Their one and only buff that can not stack with dancer and bards shield. Your example of SMN, has their carbuncle shields, their phoenix support abilities, rez and physick they have more support/utility than mch. Also with how simplified SMN is now, its almost as mobile as Prang. And while Mch doesnt have to directly get into melee they do have to get just outside of melee range for 3 of their AOEs to hit. The devs pretty much stripped mch of their flavor/identity/and support away.

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Originally Posted by WiccaP

And Raven2014, Id like to know what utility/support mch brings to the party? Tactician? Their one and only buff that can not stack with dancer and bards shield. Your example of SMN, has their carbuncle shields, their phoenix support abilities, rez and physick they have more support/utility than mch. Also with how simplified SMN is now, its almost as mobile as Prang. And while Mch doesnt have to directly get into melee they do have to get just outside of melee range for 3 of their AOEs to hit. The devs pretty much stripped mch of their flavor/identity/and support away.

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Just a minor thing, but maybe should take Physick out of the equation because is useless in almost any type of situation. Even still, Rez + personal shield + party wide hot + strong single target proc heal is a lot of utility.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

The original 3.0 MCH was good as a "base", if anything it give the class a "unique" style of play. The reason why it was so ill received was because they decide to apply the same style to BRD. Most people playing BRD at the time understandably played it because of the mobility it has, so understandably they got pissed. And I think SE took that as people just don't like the style so when they revert BRD, they also revert MCH. So BRD got its identity back, while MCH ... MCH had nothing, its original vision got scrapped and now it's struggle in the twilight zone between several thing while struggle to be anything.

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I'm a little confused by this. Gauss Barrel and Wanderer's Minuet were identical mechanics, sure, but nothing about the ammo or MCH's formerly faux-combos were "the same style," and that survived until Shadowbringers (an expansion after BRD "got its identity back," if one wanted to so fixate on a single ability), well after their rotational identities were otherwise at their most distinct. (The only increasedly shared grounds were from Role Actions --Ballad/Paeon and Promotion being unfortunately absorbed into the shared Refresh/Tactician-- but that affected only support tools, not the job's own gameplay).

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I never understood why they have to insist of making them the same, first by changing BRD style into MCH, then revert MCH style into BRD...

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On both counts... ???

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Note that I never said the 3.0 MCH was good or fun to play, it needed work. But stripping its original vision isn't one of those work.

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I... think... I agree? I'm just really having trouble making sense of your frames of reference here.

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Originally Posted by WiccaP

And Raven2014, Id like to know what utility/support mch brings to the party? Tactician? Their one and only buff that can not stack with dancer and bards shield. Your example of SMN, has their carbuncle shields, their phoenix support abilities, rez and physick they have more support/utility than mch. Also with how simplified SMN is now, its almost as mobile as Prang. And while Mch doesnt have to directly get into melee they do have to get just outside of melee range for 3 of their AOEs to hit. The devs pretty much stripped mch of their flavor/identity/and support away.

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I think you mis-addressed, I wasn't the one who want to to add ultility to MCH. In fact, I'm against it. I only bring up SMN as a parity comparision, but I don't want MCH to get more support ability. I want MCH to stay as a selfish Phys-range-DPS, 'cause that's still a subrole we don't have. The reason I focus on mobility is because if MCH want higher number, they'll need to give something in return, and mobility is about the only thing they have that can be put up for bargaining.

Something like giving MCH a new set of DPS oriented ability like this:

- Encampment: take 3 GCD to set up, the MCH plop down a gun encampment (could be a heavy MG, could be a gatlink, or even an auto cannon, the cooler the better). Once set up, all ability is changed (comestically) to match the regular rotation. The MCH receive a buff (could be potency, could be haste) as long as they use the encampment. Of course, the MCH can't move.

- Decamp: take half a GCD. The MCH abandon (or disassemble) the encampment and resume full mobility, and can attack as normal. The MCH will have to use another 3 GCD to set up if they want to use the encampment again.

- Displace: take half a GCD. Instead of abandon (or dissemble), the MCH try to haul the set up with him/her. In this mode, they suffer the heavy debuff that affects their movement accordingly. They also can not make any attack. However, once in safety, they only need to spend another half GCD to plop down the encampment and start blasting again (instead of 3 full GCD for a full re-setup). This is to encourage the MCH don't just plop the encampment down anywhere, but place it strategically similarly to how BLM would decide to place their leyline.

- Hustle: remove the heavy debuff under Displace mode for 3 seconds, allowing the MCH to move at normal speed while carrying their encampment. Basically a penalty bypass similar to Triple Cast and True North, but come in limited availability and have to be determined when it is best used.


There is, of course a less elaborate way to do this, but the idea is the same: cut down their mobility, give it another strategic/decision making layer to improve output rather than trying to achieve simple parity by just giving the job some random utility "because other classes have it too". If you had read or remember my posts from other thread, I care about class identity and the thematic value of its kit, balance is not just a parity game for the shake of parity to me.

Of course, the math and balance will have to be worked out (again, not my job in case anyone want to ask further). But with this, I think it would be ok to let MCH's number to catch up to SAM, at least in fights without a lot of large/frequent movement, while in a fight that do, of course the melee should have the advantage.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

snip

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I think much of MCH problems come with quality of life issues the job has. Like the weaving which locks half of all players with not optimal ping out anyways cause well you can't double weave with bad ping. I live really close to my datacentre actually and even i can't play MCH correctly on patchdays or when the game is really congested with players.

Also a QoL issue is the aoe actions MCH has, like that you can't move with flamethrower which makes the action almost unusable in most wall to wall pulls. That the queen has no aoe attacks so basically you can't even use your finisher for your aoe rotation. Wildfire also not aoe tho it could be easily. So many mch actions could be just aoe actions to make MCH actually more fun to play in dungeons without even having to change the job design, like it wouldn't even be a major change. Just kinda unfair that we have jobs like summoner who is basically literally all aoe and then you as a MCH have to stand there awkwardly 10s with your flamethrower which is the pinnacle of boredom.

I would be happy if they bring gunmage back and then make you hit as hard as a blackmage maybe when you go into overheat. That would be fun i bet for most of the players. Better than smothering the job constantly patch after patch cause of some ranged dps tax that shouldn't exist anymore.

The reason why i said that it seems that the devs outright hate MCH is cause the solutions and QoL changes MCH could get seem so obvious and easy to everyone who plays the job for some days. Yet SE only response to people begging time and time again for changes are again and again buffs to wildfire and other potency buffs. Which is almost never enough to even compete with other jobs let alone casters. I don't get why they are so scared of seeing a ranged dps for one patch cycle on top, so scared that they have to literally drag MCH everytime to the bottom of the list most times even below the supports. So either they don't know what to do with the job or well they outright despise it by now.

But the worst part is the silence about it, while they talk about buffing other jobs who often do fine. MCH players have to scream and beg while getting kicked from groups for playing the job and then get some small breadcrumbs in form of another wildfire potency buff.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

You're citing a completely different issue and slap it on as a problem for a different issue. SE doing a bad job at balancing them doesn't mean there isn't a reason for doing them. The reality of the majority of the fight is melee has a set of constrain that range never have to worry about.

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They aren't completely different issues because they overlap with another another. That poor balancing is a direct result of SE desperately trying to force a limitation that doesn't need to exist. At least not to the degree it does now.

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- Why there exist melee uptime strat in literally every single tier, including this one. While there is never a range up time strat? 'Cause range don't need it.

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First and foremost, you need to understand people have a terrible propensity of slapping "uptime" on something when nothing really changes. Secondly, the "uptime" strats are often better strats for a variety of reasons. Take Ruby 5, for example. This supposed "big change" has the Melee move up and hug next to the poison. It literally requires no real thought and is actually safer as you don't have three people all clumped relatively close to one another. So why didn't people change strats for reclears? Because PF sticks to week 1 strats and screams bloody murder about change. Ayatori was a downright better strat both in ease and uptime than Ilya. People simply refused to learn it because "why should I? I already know this other strat."

Even in fights where uptime is a concern and adjustments are made in favor of the Melee. That doesn't justify 600+ more rDPS. You openly admit Black Mage is among the most complex jobs in the game. Guess what? A 85% Dragoon matches it. This means a player actively making mistakes in their rotation or outright missing GCDs can still match a high tier Black Mage. It gets even more comical with the Phys Range. All five Melee could go the entire fight missing every single positional and still beat all three. Think about that for a moment. You play at the top of your game, putting in all the work necessary to reach peak performance. Meanwhile, the Monk who's missed 90% of their Snapshot or Demolish positionals does more damage than you.

Is it a small wonder why people aren't playing the Phys Range right now? You're punished for a "utility" which isn't highlight in any noteworthy way while Melee players can drop GCDs and easily surpass your damage.

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- It's common to see a party of 3 range and 1 melee with a 1 range faking melee. Have you ever seen party with 3 melee and 1 range with a melee faking range? I personally never. Now there are have been a few fights where you can bring 3 melee without impacting personal performance, but that's because those fights don't have range mechanic, and they are rare. (Like P2S)

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If it weren't for the arbitrary party bonus, every single fight in Endwalker, perhaps only excluding Ultimate, would have three Melee. As illustrate above, the damage discrepancy is absolutely massive, and was even worse back in Shadowbringers. A Dragoon losing ten GCDs would still widely outpace a Dancer. The Phys Range literally exist because of the 1%.

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Also, you can't say SMN only have 2 casts and dismiss it as not important. The point is how many cast MCH has? None. Also SMN has 2 attack that requires them to be in melee range, how many attack does MCH has that requires MCH to be in melee range? None. There are time I misjudge the EGI order and end up with Irift when the mech require I'm away from the boss, so I either have to use a few ruin or forgo the 2 melee abilities altogether. Does MCH ever have to make such choice? Never

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This is a terrible argument because you're trying to justify a massive mobility tax over two casts Summoner is never once hindered by. It can freely change the order of its Legos making it a non-issue. I should know, I played it in P4S. You know what jobs had a hell of a time optimizing? Dancer and Bard. They're actually hard jobs to play well on, especially Bard, due to how rigid the rotation is. And yet they deal paltry damage because oh boy, that mobility lets them get two GCDs during Act II and Curtain Call over the Melee.

It isn't a dismissal but a rebuttal highlighting those differences have very little actual impact. When a Melee can play objectively worse and be rewarded with higher damage for no other reason than existing, tt's a poor design choice. Going back to larger hit boxes won't change that. E6S and E8S were two of the worst Melee fights in the whole expansion. Dragoon and Monk, despite being the weakest Melee, still dwarfed all three Phys Range,

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If Complexity of rotation considered arbitrarily, explain why BLM has constantly been the top DPS despite being a range? And even a good black mage still need some accommodation from the parties to perform optimistically. BLM does pay a range tax, the currency used is their mobility and rotation, rather than potency. This is simply the argument I'm making, MCH, as it is now can not just have a cake and eat it too.

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Correction: Black Mage was the top DPS... until Endwalker where they were forced to reduce its contributions because they decided to more heavily tax Red Mage and Summoner for their ease of play, ability to raise and mobility. The hilarious irony is Red Mage has the least mobility this tier. The end result has been several panic buffs and having to nerf the last Savage fight because all six Range jobs were too weak. Black Mage was passable relative to the other five but that alone speaks volumes.

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If we disregard both mobility and rotation, are you gonna argue a BRD or DNC should do the same damage as a BLM?

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... this doesn't even make sense to what I'm saying and is little more than a strawman. If the mobility tax is removed, then jobs would be balanced around their contribution and nothing else. Bard and Dancer would still be the lowest because they have more utility. Machinist would actually get to exist since it wouldn't be weighed down in a role they can't balance. And no, it doesn't need to do Samurai damage. Just maybe enough so if that Samurai forgets what positionals are it can pull ahead.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

No, that's not what they said as rectification. They said making the hitbox as big as they are this tier was a mistake, and that's not something they gonna do again. The problem they're referring to is a fight design issue, not a class balancing issue.

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Citation needed. They've never said this. Don't take my word for it though.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...82811097-1.png

Above is Omega from Stormblood while below is Omega in Ultimate. Notice how the hit box isn't the same.

Now they may go back on this due to the massive amount of criticism but digging through every interview Yoshida has done since Abyssos released, they have never once said they're reverting hitboxes in the future. The only acknowledgement they've made is the imbalance it caused for Phys Range and Casters. Hence the buffs in 6.25. That was their fix.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

snip

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Not to mention that almost all melee jobs have some sort of ranged attack nowdays with which they can mitigate dps loss cause of getting out of range. Especially monk with his 500 potency dodge attack.

And the funny thing about this is that MCH never was decent dps wise not even when the hitboxes were smaller back then and MCH could attack when melees couldn't. MCH was still at the bottom of the list then so that ranged tax was always just an excuse.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

I think you mis-addressed, I wasn't the one who want to to add ultility to MCH.

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Im well aware of that, I addressed you because you're claiming that mch has to much utility as it is because it is a selfish dps. I just used the two jobs you mentioned as a comparison. MCH has less support/utility than SMN and SMN has become almost as mobile as the range physical category, and has a typically higher Rdps than mch. So the only thing mch actually does better, and only by a slight margin, is mobility. Which you want to sacrifice. To be a better selfish dps, mch would need personal utility, meaning even if you give it only self target abilities and buffs like you mentioned, is still adding utility.

I think you forget that MCH was originally a support job. Its turrets would restore MP/TP depending on which was deployed, a form of party support. They had a knock back, even if it didn't work half the time and they had mitigation. And they could stun, silence, and heavy their target. If you cared about class identity and thematic value you wouldn't argue for a purely selfish dps stand point, because mch wasn't originally designed that way.

The biggest mistake the devs did with mch was gutting the turret system and removing any identity the job had and focusing only on the gun and robot. Now its person doing flips while firing a gun who occasionally summons a robot. Even its core "not gun" abilities like drill, air anchor, and chainsaw are just other versions of their gun. Where's the machinery, the grappling hook jump back, the different turrets that do more than sit out for 10 seconds, the ability to throw up a mechanical ball that splits into pieces like ricochet and creates a shield around the target and nearby allies, the grenade that explodes healing allies within so many yalms, or one that is an aoe damage centered on target.

The queen is supposed to be the mch crown and glory, yet there are no abilities that tie into the battery gauge and there is absolutely no synergy between the heat and battery systems. Why doesnt wildfire also act as an aoe, or why doesnt auto crossbow reset the ogcd of ricochet like heat blast does for Gauss round?

I have mained MCH since HW and I remember MCH before it was the selfish rphys dps. I love the job, its why I still play it even though it is not in a good place and hasnt been since shadowbringers. But by its history, its lore and design, it has always been a support job. If they want to make it the selfish dps, then fine, but it needs abilities, utilities and support to be able to claim that title. Which it clearly doesnt have right now.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

There is, of course a less elaborate way to do this, but the idea is the same: cut down their mobility, give it another strategic/decision making layer to improve output rather than trying to achieve simple parity by just giving the job some random utility "because other classes have it too".

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I'd love this.

In spirit, at least, examples look fun, too -- if a bit overly button-elaborate.

In terms of the (highly tentative) details, I might prefer to be able to just leave the gun emplacement in there, and would probably rather it be a flexible CD (Battery spender, for instance) than up all the time, etc., but that's just... details. We're nowhere close to that yet. Sounds good so far!

Here was the whole thing about the whole hitboxes.

From the digest we got

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Something we've been hearing a lot about from our players, and have also noticed within the development team, is how ranged DPS jobs (both physical and magical) have lost some of their advantages ever since 5.x, which introduced enemies with large target circles and reduced downtime for melee DPS jobs. As such, we're also looking to balance ranged DPS jobs based on how they compare to melee DPS jobs. Do note, however, that this doesn't necessarily entail adjustments for all ranged DPS jobs, as some have powerful party support effects.

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And from the ffxiv reddit discord we got

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Y "We increased the hit box sizes so Melee could be hitting the boss without any loss, but by doing that now the balance between Ranged and Melee is off"

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So as mentioned before, the buffs in patch 6.28 were their temporary remedy at the moment. Hasn't completely gone by the wayside as we've seen with Criterion Dungeon and Criterion Dungeon (Savage) but the recent raid tier does show far they with go, epseically with the face that in limitless desolation there are no tower spawns in the last round.

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Originally Posted by WiccaP

meaning even if you give it only self target abilities and buffs like you mentioned, is still adding utility.

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If that's how you would call it, then it's fine. But the point still stand, I want MCH to have abilities to buff itself - as a selfish DPS rather another party wide ultilioty.

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I think you forget that MCH was originally a support job. Its turrets would restore MP/TP depending on which was deployed, a form of party support. They had a knock back, even if it didn't work half the time and they had mitigation. And they could stun, silence, and heavy their target.

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Not really, and trust me, I'm one of what probably a handful of person who vocal about MP management, aggro management, more use of cleansing ability. In fact, it wasn't just a month ago that I duke it out with some of the very other posters in this thread. And I was an extremely minority to argue for their usage and have to hold back the majority of people who dismiss those as pointless busy, uncessary things.

If I can interpret your post as someone who appreciate the old system, then you're another person I can add to that group. And right now, the total - including myself - is still a number I can count with one hand. In fact, I used almost the same language your just did when talking about it back then, against fierce resistant I might add.


What you described is not a loss unique to MCH, it is a loss to the game design as a whole with healer and support the 2 roles that suffered the most from it.

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If you cared about class identity and thematic value you wouldn't argue for a purely selfish dps stand point, because mch wasn't originally designed that way.

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First, because that identity was scrubbed as soon as it appears. Even by SB MCH seems already adopt this image of a gun-slinger style class. Then it seems we're back to a machinist now? But it has been a selfish DPS for much longer than it was a support. Regardless, it has to pick one and go all in. One of the main issue is like I said, it doesn't clearly have a place it wants to be in.


And second, even more so than the healer role, I feel support role is more of deadend. As you had rightfully noted, they had stripped away most things that would traditionally constitute the support role. And whatever role is left are also spread around half of the remaining jobs. Buffing damage? lots of class can do that. Mitigation? That's something literally almost every jobs can do. So ... what is a support class in FF14 these day anyway? Tank is a tank because only them can tank, healer is a healer because you'll need at least one of them for the party not to die to damage ... but support ... what exactly is it they do that the rest of the party can't do?

These day, hearing SE say "we gonna make this a support class" is literally synonym to "we gonna make you suck". Like, looking at the kit, I personally would think RDM actually is a stronger support than any of the current support. But because it's not classified as an official support job, it's allowed to suck less.

IMO, the only way to make Support as a viable role will require 2 things:

- Revive the traditional support system that had been tripping away since Stormblood.
- Stop the conflation where every role do a bit of what should be the job of another role.

Otherwise, the support crown is basically just a king with no clothe.

I had put forward a radical ideal in the past, I don't know if you had see it, but I include here as a reference for where I stand on the issue

Frankly, my problem is not really about healing itself, but more about role indentity. Right now there are so much conflation between roles that it both make it a balancing nightmare and a messy ball of unclear purpose. The Green DPS issue is merely the poster child of the issue, but hardly the only issue. My solution, in full, is actually very radical:

- Take away all party wide buff from DPS. Make them all selfish DPS. They're in charge of their own optimization and no one else. Also, remove stuff like fient and addle.

- Tank should only be in charge of personal defensive cool down, and maybe debuff the boss. They should not be double up duty to party wide mitigation.

- Support classes (p.range) should have the exclusive job as buffing the party, they should be the only one with party wide buffs.

- Remove majority if not all but the most basic self healing (i.e second wind) from all classes.

- Healers should be exclusive in charge of healing and raid wide mitigation.


I feel this way you can amp up the complexity and difficulty for each "role" that is unique to them. Instead of this melting pots "everyone does everything just some better than the others with DPS the only true go to".

As you can see, my previous example of the change to MCH is inline with this.

Mch:
- Need low ping to play optimally
- Rdps that doesnt buff raid dps
- Mediocre individual damage

Its core design is flawed. Need a massive rework. Too reliant on latency and by the end of the day its mediocre as a dps.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

I think you mis-addressed, I wasn't the one who want to to add ultility to MCH. In fact, I'm against it. I only bring up SMN as a parity comparision, but I don't want MCH to get more support ability. I want MCH to stay as a selfish Phys-range-DPS, 'cause that's still a subrole we don't have. The reason I focus on mobility is because if MCH want higher number, they'll need to give something in return, and mobility is about the only thing they have that can be put up for bargaining.

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Right now, MCH has the same mobility as the other ranged jobs (arguably less, as they have no mobility skills), no utility to speak of, AND lower damage, both personal and raid. Why do they have to "give up" anything just to be brought up to par?