Lock and Load: The Reassembled Machinist Guide

[Cetonis]

The top of the lists consistently show BRDs being ahead of MCH.

... no they don't. Everything from the 99th percentile down to the 70th has MCH a bit ahead on A4S, a little more ahead on Thordan, and BRD a bit ahead on A3S. A1S and A2S are fight designs highly unlikely to be replicated, so it's more or less fair to ignore them. The 100th percentile most-gamed MCH-boosted Bard parses also don't really matter.

MCH needed for HC to catch up to Foe, for Rain to matter less (check, thanks to materia) and for their valley DPS to be a bit better without greatly adding to their overall DPS. Instead SE did nothing about the latter, and made HC blow Foe way out of the water - to the point that BRD is now further behind MCH than the vice versa ever was on any normal-style fight.