MCH..The dying breed?

I love playing machinist. I love doing all the fancy tricks, stance dancing , all different wildfire combos, etc. I also enjoy raiding, but after my a3s static kicked me because my dps was not enough it left me wondering. I know machinists have been buffed but it just isn't enough. Currently, we do less damage than some tanks and that's just stupid. I mean go to player search and look up the level 60 machinists on right now on your server compared to other jobs. It seriously saddens me that my favorite class has come to this.. to be the outcast. We need something to lift up machinists come 3.1 please.

Machinist does fine DPS. Perhaps you just haven't maximized your role yet.

Besides, having a Bard/Machinist brings good utility.

Will you ever be top DPS? No. But if your static kicked you, you must have been underperforming. If I recall, Elysium's world first clear used a Machinist.

Underperforming or the group had unrealistic expectations of a machinist damage output (or a bards for that matter). Machinist by itself is "fine", but the gaps between the "decent" machinist and "great" machinists are extremely big compared to other dps jobs. Do you happen to have any footage available if you want some feedback?

yea sounds like your just missing something, u shouldnt be doing less dps than tanks. our machinist is awesome and regulary sits 2nd/3rd on dps in our group depending on the fight. also i dont know your party composition but if you dont have a dragoon your dps will suffer abit
check out the MCH threads and find out what your not doing quite right because they certainly dont need a buff

I don't think I'm worried about top dps, but when a TANK surpasses or comes close to my dps it is in fact a problem. I've looked up many guides and things about my class and I feel like I'm doing the best I can. I'm even throwing out rend mind or dismantle when it is needed. Can any other machinists speak for me?

It honestly has nothing to do with its performance though when it comes to it not being played by the community. Tons of people express how much they think GB ruins how their guns look and honestly I can't blame them. It's a fun job but that attachment is so ugly I can't touch the job. Also need to take into fact that you're going to see less people as it because at that point they already have a dps at 50+ before unlocking Machinist so why go back and relevel another job?

Machinist is doing pretty well right now tbh. It's just has some ugly visuals attached to it along with being an archetype that isn't that popular as your common mage or bow wielder.

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Originally Posted by HM01

I don't think I'm worried about top dps, but when a TANK surpasses or comes close to my dps it is in fact a problem. I've looked up many guides and things about my class and I feel like I'm doing the best I can. I'm even throwing out rend mind or dismantle when it is needed. Can any other machinists speak for me?

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Well what are your numbers looking like? If you're sub 1000, then that's a problem. How far off are you from the other DPS. At most you should only be 100-200 behind an equally skilled melee class

Also as someone mentioned before, if you have no DRG, you're going to be lower. I'm assuming the tank beating you is a WAR, so they'd have the slashing debuff. If you don't also have the piercing debuff, his numbers may approach you

You should probably mention how much DPS you are doing. If you are under performing, then I agree with them letting you go if you are not willing to improve yourself. There are a lot of things to consider. Are you doing your rotation correctly? Is there a DRG in your party? How often are you using MP/TP regens? Please elaborate on the situation.

In AS3, if you are lacking and not improving, you are going to suffer under it's intense DPS checks. MCH is not the easiest job to play, but no where near being the hardest either.

Not sure if player search gives the right picture either. I think it doesn't show people who are in dungeons or such (correctme if I'm wrong) and at least for myself, I hardly stay in my main class outside of daily ex, Alex and such. Much more likely I'll be in crafter/gatherer, or in some of the other classes I'm levening.

Well I think that MCH is one of the funnest classes Ive played out of all the physical dps classes and ive spent quite a bit of time checking my dps in a variety of combat situations. It takes practice. I wont cast lead shot unless its right after or before an OGCD or a proc, little things like that go into it, also blank fits into the rotation. Ill get up a clean shot proc then use quick reload to force a slug shot then go back and forth. I started playing machinist recently to help out a raid group in my FC, youre farther in savage than I am. Ive noticed my dps is a lot higher than I expected especially with people saying how bad mch is. When you factor in party buff, a dragoon, food, and potions it really gets up there. At 193 my opener spikes to 1600 then I can be at 1200-1300 until inactivity like jumps or adds. Thats sufficient to clear most of savage. Did they shaft you on 210 drops?

Machinist is definitely the least played DPS role. Just going off FFLOGS you can kind of get the picture of how many more bards there are than machinists just on that website. I love playing my Machinist and can pull pretty good numbers and have cleared all of Alexander Savage. There are a few reasons why there are less machinists then bards.

1. Most bards just leveled bard to 60.
2. Bards Foe's/Battle voice is higher DPS plus Rain of Death
3. Machinist I feel is harder to attain decent DPS compared to bard
4. Machinist is slightly lower DPS on AS1/AS2 and the same on AS3/4 on average.

I'm sure there are more reasons like Bards attacks look cool while machinists attacks look like sh**. People don't like how Gauss Barrel looks, people want to play a real dps role (mnk/drg/blm/smn/nin), etc.

In my opinion while high level machinists can pull out pretty good dps at the very highest levels for most moderate to beginner players their dps will be really terrible on this job and with machinists high burst and worst sustain dps in the game that doesn't help at all. SE should do something to make it easier for machinists to sustain dps so less skilled players can pull out some okay numbers and then you'll see more machinists (and maybe give them some better visuals on their attacks because they are boring but I doubt they will fix that.

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Originally Posted by Sevyn

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That is always a gripe with MCH for me that it's DPS highly depends on it's procs and crits. A lot based off how hard your Wildfire in your opener is also. Sustaining DPS is hard when your Split Shots don't want to proc to Slug. Quick Reload being reduced to 15sec. helps, but SE needs to balance it better to help sustain.

Granted, its still not a big deal, we can still keep up DPS just fine, especially with BRD's. Also the stigma MCH got at the beginning of the expansion before people figured out how to play it considered it a gimp job and many went the path of BRD instead.

MCH is more than viable in any content in the game. It just needs some quality of life balancing just like BRD does.

BRD is definitely better than MCH as far as cutting edge progression is concerned; due to the demand on healer DPS, RoD is invaluable, especially for fights that actively puts non-tanks in a position to hit the target from the front.

Other than that, the other gripe is that MCH is typically "more work for the same result", whihc I personally do not mind; I like their wildfire phases more than what BRD has to offer, but outside of that the two are extremely close in performance, playstyle and utility.

I wish it was a dying breed. Give me foes plz.

I love MCH and my group says they love having me ;_;

MCH is currently dead in High-End progression. BRD's Foe is the key for DPS checks.

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Originally Posted by Greywolfamakir

MCH is currently dead in High-End progression. BRD's Foe is the key for DPS checks.

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The world first group had a MCH. Foe's is not -needed-. Hypercharge does very well for physical attack job, especially if you have two tanks, two melee, and the ranged DPS themselves benefiting from it for 24 seconds every two minutes and it does not drain your MP, leaving you open to use MP/TP regen.

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Originally Posted by HM01

I love playing machinist. I love doing all the fancy tricks, stance dancing , all different wildfire combos, etc. .

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MCH are great dps, You should not be stance dancing, if you mess up a single GCD while stance dancing you lost the dps you would have gained by doing it anyways.

Wish the people spreading the stance dancing circle jerk around would start to realize it isn't a thing. As for the rest, you just need to optimize yourself. If you were kicked for low dps, it is likely justified.

While both BRD and MCN are currently (@ the current gear level) fairly balanced with BRD having the slight edge due to better party utility for cutting edge progression, I feel that they may become a dying breed in either the next gear update or the one after.

Due to gear scaling and with BRD already having the slight edge, it will overpower MCN even in the DPS department. BRD scales well off all stats due to having no AA during WM stance. MCN is limited by SPD due to the turrets not scaling off the stat, but the turrets do scale slightly better off DET, but not nearly enough to compensate for any level of bad gear layouts between the two classes. On top of that, BRD has amazing CRIT scaling due to it's class mechanics, where as the only mechanic MCN could benefit from is a combination of SPD/CRT to push more out of it's Wildfire Burst, but having SPD so detrimental to the rest of the MCN abilities is not good.

Due to the current DPS levels we are seeing +1000 or more depending on the encounter, a 5-10% difference between the two could be a whopping 50-100 DPS, and given the current increase per gear level increase, will be closer to 200-300 DPS in favor of BRD not including the better utility even in a 1Mage + 2 Healer setup due to Foes + RoD.

So while MCN is viable in cutting edge currently, it wont be. It will be SMN VS BLM 3.0

Original Post is too lacking of information. Currently it basically reads:

1. I like Mch

2. My a3s static group kicked me for low dps

3. Therefore, mch dps must be low and it needs buff

You assume from these statements that it can't be you who is doing something wrong, it must be the dev team.

What are you parsing in comparison to, for example, other machinists who uploaded their info to fflogs? For example, from looking at that site your recorded kills from A1S aren't near the top, or the 75th percentile, or the average 50th percentile, or the 25th percentile. So if you took that same performance into a3s, then it provides some insight as to why they chose to kick you. If you took that same performance in a3s considering that there are significantly more mechanics and dps checks to deal with compared to a1s, your dps is probably lower than a1s.

You are leaving out information.

There is nothing wrong with mch dps. We have one in our static and his numbers are stupid high. You really need to take a look at how you're playing and figure out more optimal rotations. Yes other factors contribute such as party comp and uptime on mp/tp regen but to be removed from the group I'd say it's more than that.

The ability is there. You really have to think ahead about how much time you have to attack the boss before it "disappears" so you can maximize the amount of time you have to attack.

There is no rotation for MCH except for the opener, after that its all priority and working in OGCDs. Hot shot is high on priority however lead shot, being a decent dot, does not proc anything like dots for bard, when it drops off wait to reapply it at the same time as headgraze, blank, or gauss shot.

Based on the 180 and 90 second CDs you come across a point in the fight where you do have reload, rapid fire, wildfire, b4b, and hawks eye back up. You can get your opener off minus hyper charge, raging strikes and maybe ricochet. Another time you will have all that up with raging strikes and maybe hypercharge depending. If im on an unlucky string of non-procs Ill go ahead and use ricochet on CD but ideally i want it with my rapidfire.

Maybe this helped, maybe you already knew it. I figured Id post.

Is MCH's +20% damage trait still bugged for the turret?

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

While both BRD and MCN are currently (@ the current gear level) fairly balanced with BRD having the slight edge due to better party utility for cutting edge progression, I feel that they may become a dying breed in either the next gear update or the one after.

Due to gear scaling and with BRD already having the slight edge, it will overpower MCN even in the DPS department. BRD scales well off all stats due to having no AA during WM stance. MCN is limited by SPD due to the turrets not scaling off the stat, but the turrets do scale slightly better off DET, but not nearly enough to compensate for any level of bad gear layouts between the two classes. On top of that, BRD has amazing CRIT scaling due to it's class mechanics, where as the only mechanic MCN could benefit from is a combination of SPD/CRT to push more out of it's Wildfire Burst, but having SPD so detrimental to the rest of the MCN abilities is not good.

Due to the current DPS levels we are seeing +1000 or more depending on the encounter, a 5-10% difference between the two could be a whopping 50-100 DPS, and given the current increase per gear level increase, will be closer to 200-300 DPS in favor of BRD not including the better utility even in a 1Mage + 2 Healer setup due to Foes + RoD.

So while MCN is viable in cutting edge currently, it wont be. It will be SMN VS BLM 3.0

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+1

Currently, MCH and BRD are pretty balanced, but BRD bring a better performance when the gear is low (Foe + Battle Voice help a lot with DPS checks) and BRD scales a bit better than MCH, for example, if You are searching for "Speed Runs" Imo BRDs are better than MCH (Foe + Battle Voice again),

If foe keeps current state, I mean, +10% magic damage, 20% with BV and MCH don't get an improved version of some skills like Hypercharge, Rend Mind, Dissmantle or Turrets, BRD is better than MCH when you are looking "Best in slot" party member.

Note: I have killed A1, A2 and A3 savage like MCH a lot of times, I like MCH, but I know that BRD brings a better performance than MCH for party and helps a lot with DPS checks. I don't like BRD because looks pretty boring for me, you know, keeps dots, keep straight shot, use EA,use BL when ready, thats all.

Yeah BRD is more specialized. MCH is kinda of spread out all over with their mini virus. I think Leg/Foot Graze are wasted abilities. I think one or both of them should be given 100 potency so it's an added oGCD damage ability like Suppressive Fire/Head Graze are. I think Dismantle and Rend Mind are kind of pointless. 5% for 10 seconds is not very noticable, at least give it a damage component or something. I think Heartbreak should also be a shorter recast...30s vs BRD's 12s is depressing. It's weaker and a longer recast :/

Use more Bishop.

If youre like me and find Bard to be incredibly boring and want a physical ranged class then Machinist is the obvious choice. lol As been stated if there was a huge, huge gap between one or the other, MCH simply would not have been involved in the world 2nd clear of Alex Savage.

And how many BRD's actually use Foes? :P

All joking aside MCH feels a lot better to me and I love it. I played BRD a bit back in the day and it always felt like more of a sustained DPS with utility, making sure DoTs were up and you were managing songs.

I know it's hard to compare considering I only ever got BRD to 50 and left it there, but something about MCH just feels a whole lot better, even in lvl50 content, especially when you're able to get your "burst" rotation. Being able to take a huge chunk out of single targets or even spread it around to multiple targets is a fantastic feeling.

The only real gripe I have with MCH is once you've popped all your abilities, you're left in sort of a lull, where you're more reliant on rng and procs well managing oGCDs, which isn't bad but when you're constantly getting no procs off it gets a little annoying.

I'm hooked on MCH though and plan to stay with it as my main DPS job.

MCH pulls plenty of dps, it sounds like you got kicked because you could not play the job to its full potential. Sorry but the truth is harsh.

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Originally Posted by lulunami

Elysium was the world first group for A4S iirc. They ran with a BRD not a Machinist. You might be thinking of Lucrezia who used a MCH to get world second.

BRD and MCH are both viable and have similar dps output assuming similar proficiency.

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Woops, you are right. Thank you for the correction.

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MCH and BRD DPS for the most part are pretty balanced, maybe a small tweak at most in terms of damage potency. The bigger issue that should be addressed is balance in their support role. Right now one is desired over the other depending on the group set up. Its extremely hard to properly balance at this point. Both in the support department have advantage/disadvantages, but it feels like SE set it up for one to be desired over another given the situation intentionally. I am not sure if that was the right way to go.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

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It'd be fine if it didn't fall into the trap of the meta (since both classes technically share gear, a single player can interchangeably play the two if desired, or pick one over the other with preference over playstyle). As it stands, BRD is just objectively better when it comes to cutting edge because of the accuracy debuff for the healers (until they introduce 3.2 gear with accuracy materia anyway) and foe being better than hypercharge when regen isn't needed at all in a typical composition (speaking outside of progression anyway).

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

It'd be fine if it didn't fall into the trap of the meta (since both classes technically share gear, a single player can interchangeably play the two if desired, or pick one over the other with preference over playstyle). As it stands, BRD is just objectively better when it comes to cutting edge because of the accuracy debuff for the healers (until they introduce 3.2 gear with accuracy materia anyway) and foe being better than hypercharge when regen isn't needed at all in a typical composition (speaking outside of progression anyway).

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Its funny, Foe's Requiem should work more like Hypercharge, and Hypercharge should work more like Foe's Requiem. Put them both on oGCD with a timer without draining MP and increase both Mag/Phy attack by a certain percentage.

Sounds good on paper, but it would be hard to change a lot of the abilities at this point.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

Its funny, Foe's Requiem should work more like Hypercharge, and Hypercharge should work more like Foe's Requiem. Put them both on oGCD with a timer without draining MP and increase both Mag/Phy attack by a certain percentage.

Sounds good on paper, but it would be hard to change a lot of the abilities at this point.

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I'm all for homogenizing their support (considering they are competiting for the same role of "support dps") as long as their gameplay isn't homogenized ...unfortunately the opposite is in effect.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

I'm all for homogenizing their support (considering they are competiting for the same role of "support dps") as long as their gameplay isn't homogenized ...unfortunately the opposite is in effect.

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Its mostly because of WM/GB. If you take those out of the equation, while still similar, feel different enough to be called their own. Just my take on it.

What I want mostly out of MCH is a better form of sustained damage and better balance of support with BRD. Will we ever get that? I wouldn't put my money on it.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

Its mostly because of WM/GB. If you take those out of the equation, while still similar, feel different enough to be called their own. Just my take on it.

What I want mostly out of MCH is a better form of sustained damage and better balance of support with BRD. Will we ever get that? I wouldn't put my money on it.

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Even outside of GB/WM, MCH just doesn't do quite enough on it's own to be "that" different from 2.0 bard. They maintain a buff (hotshot/SS), maintain one less DoT, and play re-actively to procs on their weaponskills (whereas MCH does this more frequently). There's very little interaction with the turret since it's mostly place-and-forget, and while their burst is different, it's only one side aspect of their core gameplay.

As a new job introduced from the expansion (which means they can put so much more thought and detail behind it, versus a 3.x patch or hotfix), it's incredibly disappointing to see it from that regard, and it's such a wasted opportunity for an entire new job where their initial previews were utilizing multiple attachments and ammunition to boost skills or being required for skills. It would have been nice ot have an AoE barrel that gave your weaponskills an AoE effect (at the cost of more TP and less damage) while getting rid of spread/grenado (which are functionally the same as QN/WV), and a barrel that increases dps at the cost of TP efficiency (for wildfire or burst/push phases). You can see that definitely being the case for Dork knight and AST (and in the case of the latter, it was relatively weak but that's what you can tune with hotfixes)

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

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I think developers might be too scared to make the two jobs feel completely different. Its weird because Black Mage and Summoner feel completely different but both casting DPS's that excel in AoE. I am not sure why the same mind set could of been applied here in retrospect.

I love how MCH plays and my favorite job the game has made so far, but its still fair to point out they didn't really go out of their way to make it very different from BRD.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

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In a sense, I still think GB/WM is part of the problem. DRK is rather similar to PLD up until 50, at which point their skill kits start to diverge further, and they end up feeling different at 60. BRD and MCH don't differentiate from 50-60 that much because of WM/GB.

GB and WM are the same ability essentially.
Empyreal Arrow and Gauss Round have slightly different functionality but serve the same purpose of making up for the loss of auto attacks on single target.
Richochet/Sidewinder are essentially both just new oGCD attacks.

That's 3 of 5 new abilities that are devoted to essentially the same exact thing that don't even really function all that different from one another. And 3-4 abilities can do a lot to make shared role jobs feel different from one another. Most of what DRK gets after 50 is pretty unique to them, at least among the tanks, which goes a long way toward differentiating it from PLD and WAR.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

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It definitely doesn't help that GB/WM are functionally the same. In fact, if they worked differently (one boosts attack speed and lowers TP cost, or even add a new mechanic like a stacking buff of sorts used for oGCD usage), it'd go a long way compared to what it is now, instead of straight up adding cast times (which doesn't do much to begin with, esp for 2.0 BRDs who made it a habit to not move when unnessescary).

But outside of not having WM/GB, I still feel the two jobs are still extremely similar to each other is what I'm getting at. Not that it's a problem because end game isn't at level 50.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

I think developers might be too scared to make the two jobs feel completely different. Its weird because Black Mage and Summoner feel completely different but both casting DPS's that excel in AoE. I am not sure why the same mind set could of been applied here in retrospect.

I love how MCH plays and my favorite job the game has made so far, but its still fair to point out they didn't really go out of their way to make it very different from BRD.

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Exactly this. And it's exactly why with a new expansion, you can't play it safe with something like new job or content; it has to be well...new. It's so much easier to mak these big changes during its developmental phase, then make needed adjustments as you get player input (like when 20% WM/GB was a damage loss, and AST in general)

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

But outside of not having WM/GB, I still feel the two jobs are still extremely similar to each other is what I'm getting at. Not that it's a problem because end game isn't at level 50.

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Honestly, the two jobs feel better differentiated to me at 50 than they do at 60, at least in terms of like, how my fingers move about my keybinds. That's a really hard thing to quantify, but to me at least, MCH's combo+proc system feels a lot different from Heavy Shot+Bloodletter procs. They're still fairly similar, of course (but so are DRK and PLD/WAR, so they aren't alone there). It's just that GB/WM then go and make them *more* similar, which was a really poor design decision, especially, as you note, because this was an expansion.

They're also so similar in terms of what they do for the party that one or the other is always going to be preferred for content because it's more effective. The only notable difference is the Physical Resistance debuff that MCH has, but it's not good enough that you would for some reason have another physical DPS instead of a caster in your DPS loadout. It also doesn't help that Foe Requiem is just easier to apply (and works better in situations with multiple targets that you can't group up) than the Magic Resistance debuff from Hypercharged Bishop.

They probably should have diversified their utility more, too. Personally, I've been pondering the idea of MCH providing the Piercing debuff, so that they don't necessitate a DRG, which would possibly make them a bit different from BRD in terms of favored party compositions.

Wish they would make WM/GB more like Dreadwyrm trance in that they are temporary stances that last for like 15seconds, so most of the time, we play like our pre 52 selves, and for 15seconds can use the new abilities (modifying their recasts of course).