Is MCH even support?

I thought the physical ranged DPS job were supposed to be the most support-y job role. But MCH confuses me. It has the same role as BRD, but less support and utility then a NIN, which is a melee DPS job. So, what exactly is MCH supposed to be?

For Comparison:

BRD: Crit buff from songs, DH buff from Battle Voice, buffs from Troubadour, buff from Nature's Minne, dmg up from Foes, and a cleanse - 6 things.

NIN, a melee DPS: dmg up from Trick Attack, enmity control from Shadewalker and Smokescreen, and Slashing debuff from Shadow Fang - 4 things.

Meanwhile, MCH: dmg up from Hypercharge, and dmg down from Dismantle - 2 things.

Just 2.....only 2...as a support. Even DRG and SMN offer more than that? So I'm confused, is BRD the only support class now?

Honestly outside of TP, MP(cross role tho) and hypercharge, it really doesn't feel supporty at all. I am surprised it's the weakest dps considering NIN exists and is far stronger with essentially the same ability.

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Originally Posted by RLofOBFL

Honestly outside of TP, MP(cross role tho) and hypercharge, it really doesn't feel supporty at all. I am surprised it's the weakest dps considering NIN exists and is far stronger with essentially the same ability.

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I honestly don't think they know what to do with it. Even though it still retains nearly the best burst in the game, it's sustained DPS has worsened. I also feel that the latest 'fixes' to it's heat gauge have taken a lot of the fun out of the class for me, though I'm hardly high end enough to know whether or not to amounts to a proper DPS gain or not.

They dropped the (musket) ball on MCH. Their class "support skills" are really no different than any other DPS with a group CD. Even Dismantle is terrible as all three tanks can do the exact same thing on a shorter CD with Reprisal. Unless you really enjoy the play style, there's no reason in playing one.

Do Square Enix even know what Machinist is meant to be?

You has gun. You point gun. You kill pepo

I wouldn't call em support and I sure as hell wouldn't call em fun either..

We don't know what they hell they are.
Barely even a DPS lol.

Yes, that's why i'm "forced" to level BRD atm, since for O3S and O4S people never (95% of the time) have a slot opened for MCH. Most of the time it's "BRD-exclusive".
Thanks you, Square Enix. For your "amazing job at balancing classes" and "MCH improvements in 4.05".

p.s. The next class rebalance will happen in 4.1, according to Yoshida's words in last letter.

I was hoping they'd expand upon the turrets at least, BRD have their songs they improved and made the song system better and MCH have their turrets and they.....didnt do anything. BRDs use a Flute to activate their songs MCH use the same animation they use for everything else -_-

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Originally Posted by Clawbriar

Do Square Enix even know what Machinist is meant to be?

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Guns are a rarity in Japan so I'd assume no. :b

I still play Machinist but yeah...I've known of all of these issues for a bit, it's rather sad.

Machinist, sadly, is a borderline dead job at this point. The overhaul it received going into Stormblood was an essential gut job-- further hindered by the 4.05 update making it brain dead easy. It's hard to say what it is anymore.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Machinist, sadly, is a borderline dead job at this point. The overhaul it received going into Stormblood was an essential gut job-- further hindered by the 4.05 update making it brain dead easy. It's hard to say what it is anymore.

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It's a shame how many jobs they broke with this expansion... Although MCH probably got the worst of it.

I actually still find MCH pretty fun. The heat reduction was unnecessary but it didn't ruin the class for me...though Cooldown did get a lot less fun. I am just really upset that it's basically as dead as it was in 3.0. Its weak numbers are even more noticeable in savage content. BRD not only has muuuuch higher personal deeps but Foe's has a 3% buff on essentially the same CD, as it takes roughly 2:30 for full MP, and that's neglecting refresh, which lets it be used much faster, at only a 150 potency loss on BRD. On top of the direct hit and critical buffs, it makes up a lot more than the 2% difference between Foe and HC.

Bruh didnt you already post this in reddit?

Its a shame they didn't stick to the original idea of many types of add ons other than gauss barrel. They all could have changed the play style and worked like BRDs songs but in a way that wouldn't make it a clone. I don't get why they feel the need to keep saying having more options will make it overwhelming. Im so sick of there excuses for making the jobs interesting!

We are not support.
We are not even good DPS.

We are just a buncha loud, awesome looking, mobile fireworks displays! Come on, MCH fashion is hype and you know it! But no seriously, right now, if you look at our kit and not the role actions, it seems the SE wants us to be mostly DPS now, not support. Without an official statement however it is still speculation.

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Originally Posted by Mirch

You has gun. You point gun. You kill pepo

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Except they do even that objectively worse than every other class dedicated to killing people... including bards

MCH are the ultimate fashionistas, extremely classy and beautiful, but without any actual substance to fill the void. About the only reason to play a MCH is to stun people with your beauty in Rhalgr's Reach and Kugone.

Embrace the Ultimate Despair!

With Machinist you basically play the hardest piano tune in the world and end up losing to someone playing lyp synching a song (bard).

I just want them to tell us what MCH is supposed to be. If they want bard as the BLM/SAM of physical range classes then ok fine but shouldn't MCH have more support skills than bard then? If they messed up and want bard to be the actual bard and support the most shouldn't their damage be lower than MCH then?

It's a bit sad because new MCH is really fun but getting anything out of them besides savage raids where bosses move around/have 10000 mechanics isn't worth it. I hope they don't only see savage raid numbers and think it's ok because ONLY in savage raids do bosses give you enough time to use your best burst again. Anywhere besides that it doesn't make sense.

Maybe they just need to change the identity of the job and instead of burst remove overheat mechanic and make it about staying within 50/95 on the gauge and then reset to 0 if you go above 95 instead of giving you a complete penalty. This also makes flamethrower use more interesting. Or just remove the penalty altogether, seriously. That overheat mechanics goes too far, we already have Wildfire and the rook/bishop overload, we don't need another one with the heat gauge overheat and then it turns into a penalty.

I just tested something... I'm not geared enough for omega 1 savage, but I went into that test dummy and with my MCH (properly geared and melded) and with almost no messing up with rotations, I've managed to bring the dummy to 15%...

Then I went with my SCH that is about the same gear levels as MCH and went into full dps rotation and... achieved the SAME results! And I felt I could have went even further because I forgot to use chain stratagem and did not use Aetherflow stacks offensively w/ energy drain.


Something is reallt botched with MCH.

They need either to buff their dps to the non-supporty dpsers OR give them 2 more utility tools to be on par with goddamn BRD.

I love to play healing and supporting classes in RPGs, that's why I went to MCH. I don't really like BRD thematically being some sort of glorified archer, the job isn't very fun to me.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I just tested something... I'm not geared enough for omega 1 savage, but I went into that test dummy and with my MCH (properly geared and melded) and with almost no messing up with rotations, I've managed to bring the dummy to 15%...

Then I went with my SCH that is about the same gear levels as MCH and went into full dps rotation and... achieved the SAME results! And I felt I could have went even further because I forgot to use chain stratagem and did not use Aetherflow stacks offensively w/ energy drain.

Something is reallt botched with MCH.

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That's not really indicative of anything, because the target dummy's HP is different depending on what class you're using.

Tanks and healers have weaker dummies to compensate for their lower DPS.

Doesn't change the fact that MCH is genuinely messed up right now, though.

To be honest, I hope they focus more on the DPS aspect of MCH when they come to buffs, buff it up really high, theres nothing literally saying that both physical ranged DPS jobs have to be support focused.

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Originally Posted by Ghastly

With Machinist you basically play the hardest piano tune in the world and end up losing to someone playing lyp synching a song (bard).

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It's posts like yours that irk me the wrong way. The way you're comparing Bard and Machinist is infallible and dumbed down - Bard is in no way an easy job to perform with in Raid. Is it as hard as MCH? No, but to say it's like your comparison just shows your disdain towards the meta currently. Don't lash out at a job that's perfectly tuned (Bard) for its role, that's a mob mentality that'll end up nerfing a job that doesn't need it.

Also, Bard does nowhere near the damage a red mage or black mage does. With Dragon Sight and Disembowel (along with Battle Litany), they're comparing, however those are buffs that are given from another job. Bard is nowhere near the level of the caster counterparts.

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Originally Posted by JisKing98

Bruh didnt you already post this in reddit?

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Actually, I posted to reddit what I posted here, mostly because I'm interested i the opinions of others and not everyone comes here.

That said, I really can't understand the reasoning behind anything that they did with MCH.

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Originally Posted by DRHaymaker

They dropped the (musket) ball on MCH. Their class "support skills" are really no different than any other DPS with a group CD. Even Dismantle is terrible as all three tanks can do the exact same thing on a shorter CD with Reprisal. Unless you really enjoy the play style, there's no reason in playing one.

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Correction: Reprisal and Dismantle have the same cooldown. They are LITERALLY the same exact skill in all aspects, just under a different name. (Effect/duration/cooldown)

MCH's has nothing 'nice' when compared to any other job.

Their turrets became no more complex with Stormblood because they removed Promote from them, something that gave them at least SOME complexity in a minor way, (their auras worked slightly different from BRD songs). Further, part of their DPS 'budget' is wasted on the turret, meaning their best feedback loop of BIG damage from wildfires is gimped, because for some UNGODLY reason neither the turret nor their biggest potency ability Overdrive contributes to wildfire.
How does Square think this is acceptable? What if RDM's Embolden had no effect on their rotation, 'just because'? Or if Blood for Blood had no effect on DRG's jumps? It doesn't feel good and is a core reason why their dps is below the curve.

There's nothing interesting or interactive with turrets at all right now. The only 'option' to mix up turret use is to blow them up to benefit from the Vuln up, a practice which is only BARELY a dps gain and comes with all the same problems of dragon kick. Meaning most players won't bother to use it, or worse, use it ineffectively and hurt their own dps.

The MACHINE, in Machinist, is boring. This is a HUGE problem Square, what are you thinking? I'd be far more happy with a Gunslinger type of class, because the job barely uses gadgets at all, and the ones they do have are boring and or horrible.

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Originally Posted by DarkSlayerGrimm

I was hoping they'd expand upon the turrets at least, BRD have their songs they improved and made the song system better and MCH have their turrets and they.....didnt do anything. BRDs use a Flute to activate their songs MCH use the same animation they use for everything else -_-

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That button they press on the hip thing is the VHS tape of the bard playing their flute.

I generally love the MCH rotation but I hate the fact that, no matter how well I nail the rotation, I still feel like I'm just tickling things.

Then I switch to NIN, a class with better support abilities than MCH and stuff just melts...

I wouldn't mind if they went ahead and made MCH a full-blown pet class and just had the turret follow you around. It would be one less repetitive button to push (especially in POTD, good GOD...) and if the turret had a proper pet bar, maybe they could come up with some interesting interactions instead of just it being a "place and forget" DoT like it is now.

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Originally Posted by CosmicKirby

The MACHINE, in Machinist, is boring. This is a HUGE problem Square, what are you thinking? I'd be far more happy with a Gunslinger type of class, because the job barely uses gadgets at all, and the ones they do have are boring and or horrible.

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Actually, i like this idea.
Removing turrets/etc and make it a pure gunslinger class.

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Originally Posted by AkashiXI

Also, Bard does nowhere near the damage a red mage or black mage does. With Dragon Sight and Disembowel (along with Battle Litany), they're comparing, however those are buffs that are given from another job. Bard is nowhere near the level of the caster counterparts.

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Depends on the encounter.
In O4S Neo-Exdeath Bard do the same damage as BLM and RDM. (because /mechanics)
https://www.fflogs.com/rankings/17#b...obal&spec=Bard

TL;DR O4S
- 4.3k Bard
- 4.5k BLM
- 4.4k RDM
..........
- 3.9k MCH (such good dps)

But, i got the feeling that instead of MCH buffs in 4.1, we will receive BRD nerfs and both jobs will be collecting dust.

p.s. I want MCH to be competitive in Savage-scene, like it was in HW. But right now it's far less DPS and less party buffs/utility. It's a shame how they oversight this.

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Originally Posted by Zeonsilt

Depends on the encounter.
In O4S Neo-Exdeath Bard do the same damage as BLM and RDM. (because /mechanics)
https://www.fflogs.com/rankings/17#b...obal&spec=Bard

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Wow... the Best MCH parse for O4S is only 600 dps ahead of the best PLD (and 1700 dps ahead of the best WHM).

Lesson of the day: Roll a tank, you won't do a whole lot less DPS, but be an actual asset to your party ;)

MCH definitely needs love. Please keep your personal / guild parse results off the official forum. You guys should know better.

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Originally Posted by eschaton

MCH definitely needs love. Please keep your personal / guild parse results off the official forum. You guys should know better.

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How can you expect to address a problem properly if you bury the quantitative data?

Qualitative data ie. "I feel like my DPS as a MCH is much lower than the other DPS I party with" is not useful to anyone. I've seen examples of every class saying they feel out-classed by every other class; even seen SAMs complaining their DPS is too low. But MCH is right, they don't just feel weak, they are weak, objectively. But a large body of quantitative data is need however not only to confirm that, but figure out how much weaker, and where and why they are coming up short, and what adjustments could be made to fix it.

Right now MCH's weakness is demonstrated to be twofold; the highest performing players are coming out wayyyyy below their compatriots (Often as much as 20%), while the bell curve average MCH is also under-performing. This means the problem is fundamental to the class, and not simply that the class has a very high skill ceiling.

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Originally Posted by eschaton

MCH definitely needs love. Please keep your personal / guild parse results off the official forum. You guys should know better.

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AFAIK, it's not allowed to mention parse only when it used for harassment/etc. But right now we are looking at raw data/statistics and how class perform in SB encounters.
It is really useful.

And people have the nerve to call this game well balanced.

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Originally Posted by AkashiXI

It's posts like yours that irk me the wrong way. The way you're comparing Bard and Machinist is infallible and dumbed down - Bard is in no way an easy job to perform with in Raid. Is it as hard as MCH? No, but to say it's like your comparison just shows your disdain towards the meta currently. Don't lash out at a job that's perfectly tuned (Bard) for its role, that's a mob mentality that'll end up nerfing a job that doesn't need it.

Also, Bard does nowhere near the damage a red mage or black mage does. With Dragon Sight and Disembowel (along with Battle Litany), they're comparing, however those are buffs that are given from another job. Bard is nowhere near the level of the caster counterparts.

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Ehhh. I think it is possible for a Bard to catch a Red Mage or a Black Mage in raw DPS, but they do require party buffs from other classes to do so (especially Astrologian's Spear). Bard also has a super high skill ceiling (probably the highest of every DPS in the game in terms of raw optimization) that shouldn't be underestimated, there's a reason why Bards have a reputation for being a low DPS class but every raider will tell you it's actually the other way around. It's also due to how the critical stat works differently for Bards than other classes - for other classes, it generally just causes bigger numbers. For Bards, it causes bigger numbers AND lets us attack more often, and that's something that will become more apparent throughout the patch cycle as our crit rate increases.

Machinist, though, is undoubtedly in serious trouble. I feel they should just overhaul the entire class again, because it's clear the devs don't really know what they want Machinist to be in the first place. I honestly can't think of a single thing they can do anymore that Bard won't beat them at, besides maybe Hypercharge. Ryuujin put it best.

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Originally Posted by RyuujinZERO

How can you expect to address a problem properly if you bury the quantitative data?

Qualitative data ie. "I feel like my DPS as a MCH is much lower than the other DPS I party with" is not useful to anyone. I've seen examples of every class saying they feel out-classed by every other class; even seen SAMs complaining their DPS is too low. But MCH is right, they don't just feel weak, they are weak, objectively. But a large body of quantitative data is need however not only to confirm that, but figure out how much weaker, and where and why they are coming up short, and what adjustments could be made to fix it.

Right now MCH's weakness is demonstrated to be twofold; the highest performing players are coming out wayyyyy below their compatriots (Often as much as 20%), while the bell curve average MCH is also under-performing. This means the problem is fundamental to the class, and not simply that the class has a very high skill ceiling.

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When you look at Bard data, the bell curve average being low still exists for Bards too, but the highest performing Bards are consistently matching higher performing players of other classes, while the highest performing MCHs (and Summoners) are still miles behind. And then you look at the link below, which is data collected from every parse recorded for O1S, which means a sample size of at least 20,000 fights.

https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/17#boss=42

There is a big, BIG problem when the top performing players in the world of two DPS classes are 300-400 DPS below the top performing players of every other DPS class in the game. Especially when Summoner isn't really support by any stretch of the imagination, and Machinist are far less supporty than Bards are.

(Oh, and the current highest performing MCH in the world at O1S also plays Bard and has a recorded Bard parse with 200 DPS higher than their MCH.)

Op jobs: PLD, BRD, RDM, AST
Under performing jobs: SMN, SCH, DRK
Nonexistent: MCH

So much that needs to be worked on.

I'm not a MCH main by any stretch (much less a heavy DPS player), so my opinion might not be worth very much. But I will say that even when I try my hardest I just can't catch up to other people. I play as optimally as possible and I still fall behind every other job unless the other person is snoozing at their desk or something. I know SE wanted to do away with the correlative relationship between complexity and damage but I think they got it wrong with MCH. I'm not asking to have big D damage like SAM but I hope 4.1 brings some minor potency buffs at the very least.

I also wish it didn't feel thematically awful to blow up a turret/overheat then sit around waiting for my "damage mode" to come back but that might be my opinion as a scrub rather than someone who actually knows the job inside and out.

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Originally Posted by Zeonsilt

Depends on the encounter.
In O4S Neo-Exdeath Bard do the same damage as BLM and RDM. (because /mechanics)
https://www.fflogs.com/rankings/17#b...obal&spec=Bard

TL;DR O4S
- 4.3k Bard
- 4.5k BLM
- 4.4k RDM
..........
- 3.9k MCH (such good dps)

But, i got the feeling that instead of MCH buffs in 4.1, we will receive BRD nerfs and both jobs will be collecting dust.

p.s. I want MCH to be competitive in Savage-scene, like it was in HW. But right now it's far less DPS and less party buffs/utility. It's a shame how they oversight this.

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I still stand by my statement (in the same post you quoted) that Bards damage only becomes comparable to a red mage or black mage when there's a dragoon present. Those numbers you're quoting are Bards who received disembowel, fed Spear, and given Dragon Sight. What other job in this game needs another (DRG) to that extent? And of course a range will get closer on fights that require heavy movement or mechanics, they're consistent damage for that reason.