Would MCH be in a better position with offensive utility?

Disclaimer:
Yes, I play MCH mainly so I'm sure my bias has taken root in my post and suggestion. Feel free to curb my boomstick enthusiasm as needed and provide constructive criticism.

Context:
(Feel free to skip to The Point if you're well aware of how the rDPS dynamic works, or to read and correct me where needed)
MCH, BRD, and DNC have this dynamic where their individual damage is balanced with the buffs and utilities they provide.

DNC has a potent single target, consistent damage buff as well as various other utilities (sharing its crit/dhit buff with dance partner, group heal in a pinch, etc), but tends to be the lowest individual DPS to balance it out.
BRD has a less potent but group-wide, consistent damage/crit/dhit (rotating) buff as well as other utilities (cleanse, increased heals, another dhit increase, another dmg increase). It generally does more dmg than DNC to be the middle-point between MCH and DNC.
MCH has no consistent buffs and limited support utility in the form of Tactician (which its counterparts have in their forms as well -- as such I'm not going to mention it for the rest of the OP). It's also the highest individual DPS of the three, but is known as the 'selfish DPS' due to what it brings to the table, or lack thereof.

The Point:
MCH is by no means unplayable or weak, and endgame content can be cleared with the job. However due to its near-zero utility it's often overlooked for the other two and regarded as the worst of the bunch.

I feel that should change. I understand the rDPS dynamic SE has fleshed out, but MCH having no utility is drastic and what it gets in return is either undervalued or not worth it objectively. I believe MCH should get a debuff ability (i.e. Vuln) to both provide it more value. It doesn't need to be anything dramatic since it is still supposed to be the least utility in relation to BRD and DNC, but enough to offset the lack of said utilty.

How would I see it implemented? In a preexisting ability. I would, for instance, suggest inflicting Vulnerability Up on a single target when Hypercharge is used. That can lead to a fairly consistent uptime that also can synchronize with the utility of other classes (Arcane Circle, Divination, Embolden, etc) for a substantial impact.

Imo, it fits the 'selfish' DPS nature that MCH has been redesigned to be. MCH is less focused on helping party members do more, and more focused on doing more itself. Sure, it also is a boon for other party members, but only if they're attacking what the MCH wants to attack. Thankfully in most content where balancing is looked at, it's usually a single target/boss fight.

Whatever the specifics of the debuff, it would have to be substantial enough to justify even adding it at all, but not enough to disbalance the dynamic SE wants.

TL;DR

SE pls gib vuln/something to MCH so I stop getting mogged by BRD/DNC

Also, I understand there's a thread up already discussing MCH's design state and how happy/unhappy people are with it. I made a conscious decision to post this to focus on MCH's value in utility, in particular.

Offensive "utility" is already included in overall dps. Don't think of it as a DNC or BRD buffing other people, think of it as them foisting their dps responsibilities onto other people because that's essentially how these things work on paper. Simple potency adjustments to MCH would do the same thing as adding in offensive utility.

Machinist lacks utility, as in, stuff that helps you with stuff other than straight damage output. SAM has Third Eye to reduce damage taken, and low cooldown gap openers/closers. BLM has Aetherial Manipulation to reposition themselves and Manaward to shield themselves. BRD has Nature's Minne to help with tank healing, and Warden's Paeon for an ogcd Esuna to save a healer GCD. DNC has Curing Waltz and Improvisation as party wide heals. In contrast to literally every other job in the entire game, MCH has absolutely 0 abilities like this, hence they lack utility.

BLM brings no utility and is well balanced.
Just except the fact it's much more mobile than it ever was.

The problem is how jobs are designed and what they bring to the party:
-Personal Damage
-Party crit&DH
-Pure damage buffs
-Mitigation
-Shield
-Healing (pure&HoT)
-Other (Expedient/Rescue)

When a job has Party buffs, it's often balanced to not have big personal damage.
And the same applies to opposite, jobs with no party buffs have big personal damage.
The problem is that both Samurai and Machinist are lower than what they should output.

If SQEX adds rDPS, they will remove some of MCH personal DPS, that's balancing.
The problem is that MCH only brings damage to the party and nothing else. And even when it supposed to shine there, it's lower than what DNC and BRD can bring on top of extra utility.
Tactician is a role skill disguised as a job ability.

I always thought it would be interesting if MCH became the first debuff support job, so instead of buffing the party like BRD or DNC it would debuff the enemy. The jobs iconic kit kinda supports that style and it even used to have tools to that effect. Old hypercharge would increase the enemies damage taken and it used to have an ability called dismantle where they would just throw a wrench at the enemy reducing their damage dealt.

If they just built on that concept and made it so MCH provided a constant barrage of enemy debuffs in line with the kind of things BRD and DNC do for buffing the party it could be a powerful addition to the team.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

I always thought it would be interesting if MCH became the first debuff support job, so instead of buffing the party like BRD or DNC it would debuff the enemy.

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The job used to be like that, I really wish they doubled down on MCH's debuffer theme instead of removing it entirely, stuff like dismantle/rend mind/old hypercharge were fine, but they gutted those because we can't have nice things so instead the only support they get is a role action that's not actually a role action for some reason.

MCH used to have a trick attack in Hypercharge ala SB MCH.

Personally I don't really care for offensive utility for MCH because that'll only relegate it to be another weak rDPS (it's already in a very weak position).

They should buff their damage to match melee rDPS jobs to make up for their lack of buffing abilities.

If there's any "utility" that MCH could have, I'd rather they have a weak raidwide shield that reduces magical dmg by 10%. Or even bring MCH-flavored Palisade back.

MCH is selfish but rn it's personal damage is weaker than DNC and BRD.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Atmaweapon510

Offensive "utility" is already included in overall dps. Don't think of it as a DNC or BRD buffing other people, think of it as them foisting their dps responsibilities onto other people because that's essentially how these things work on paper. Simple potency adjustments to MCH would do the same thing as adding in offensive utility.
.

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Offensive utility is very polarizing as well... Like this responsibility swap is great when the buffed people are at their top game, but like, if a dance partner performs poorly, it just drags your dps down no matter how tight you're playing your rotation. I must say I enjoy MCH being the 'selfish' option of the aiming group for that reason.

But I agree MCH needs something else that is related to utility that is not related directly to dps. I'd love a second sprint or a way to generate battery out of combat.

Generally each job within a role should be in a roughly fixed position on the sliding scale of Group output vs Personal damage. Dancer is obvious raid output, displacing bard to be in the middle. That means Machinist should have the least group output but the highest personal damage so its overall dps is on par.

Note that I never said it should have NO utility. Imo all jobs should have some form of raid buff, and the more utility a job gets the lower its personal damage to balance

MCH definitely needs to have stronger DPS but it's weird that it has zero unique utility in the broadest sense. All physical ranged have the party wide ten percent mitigation so I don't count that as unique to any of them, but MCH doesn't even have a mobility tool. DNC gets 3 dashes and Bard gets a disengage and this is on top of all the other offensive skills and healing options. I would enjoy having any kind of utility at all. Maybe let MCH erect a Zipline to slide in any direction they choose. Let it be a semipermanent construct that lingers for 15 seconds so that the entire party can interact with it and use it to move quickly from end to end. Why not let MCH have a revive ability named Defibrillator on a 60 second Cooldown to match Swiftcast. Right now MCH just feels terribly bland in addition to being weak and a line AoE for the capstone ability is not filling the void. I miss having the knock back from Blank to cancel enemy aoes without adding to their stun immunity. If anyone in the physical ranged group should have interesting utility it should be the "mad scientist" class.

Offensive "utility", in practice, is a euphemism for lower performance in sub-8-man content and slightly greater punishment for death -- atop being dependent on 7 other people to get a good parse.

It's already accounted for in your rDPS, and thus really only amounts to temporarily taking efforts to shuffle your numbers to others' bars before shuffling them right back again.

MCH could do with or without it. If the concern is power or actual utility, though, the solution is simply to give it more power or actual utility, respectively. Including offensive "utility" into its budget provides neither.