Disembowel: Please Fix this Mess

[Kabooa]

Disagree there Kabooa. Machinists would almost certainly completely vanish without disembowel, based on current upload numbers they have with it. MCH trades off BRD's level of support for personal damage, seen in hypercharge v foes + battle voice + passive 2% crit buff, and it doesn't pay off well for them at all.
"Should a bard not be present or available" is a unicorn. I say that knowing full well I am that unicorn. However you are saying "should the most popular job in savage be unavailable maybe we can find someone who mains the least popular job." Also without piercing I have high and heavy doubts you'd ever see mch/brd in a serious comp again.

Speaking as someone who's had to do raid recruitment, yeah, Bards can actually be pretty hard to find.

And straight up, as long as refresh is in its current implementation, you will never not take at least one, and you will never suffer for taking two, even if disembowel were gone.

[Dualgunner]

Speaking as someone who's had to do raid recruitment, yeah, Bards can actually be pretty hard to find.

And straight up, as long as refresh is in its current implementation, you will never not take at least one, and you will never suffer for taking two, even if disembowel were gone.

Depends on what you're going for then, I suppose. BRD/MCH would definitely be out of speedkills, and MCH would be gone from any sort of meta consideration completely. I don't disagree that refresh is a good tool, and I'm not saying that sans-piercing you wouldn't take at least one, though perhaps I disagree and consider taking a MCH/BRD for double refresh to be overkill. I am saying that Machinist, which even now is hanging into Savage in general by a thread, will almost go extinct sans piercing.

Speaking as somebody who's also had to do raid recruitment, most meta jobs are hard to find. In my own experience, bards were the easiest of the meta jobs to find, but I concede that's anecdote. All I have to go off data-wise is the uploads in the last two weeks, because FFLogs doesn't keep the total uploads across the tier unfortunately. There are currently less than a quarter of the total uploads for Machinist than there are for Bard.

[Kabooa]

I won't claim to know why Machinist is under represented, but relative strength to Bard, they are pretty close to one another. As it stands, Machinist is already edged out with Disembowel in favor of taking a Summoner or Monk, but those are very niche cases.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I’m aware of how a static is, but most people build a meta static and monkey mimic off the World Firsts. Just because a 1% hardcore uses a specific comp doesn’t mean that other jobs can’t complete content, which is why I’m saying it takes the fun out of the community. If anything, I’d rather play the job I know best and have fun with than rather conform to a single person’s whims.

But in doing so, your static mate suffers. If they're fine with it, by all means, however if they find enjoyment chasing FFlogs, well, you've denied them ever breaking above a certain threshold. This assumes, of course, the person willing to alternate Dragoon can play it up to a comparable standard they play Monk or Ninja. Now you can always compromise where some weeks you play Monk (your preference) and others you play Dragoon (Bard/Machinist preference.) Regardless, this should stop being a thing. No other job is beholden to another like the aforementioned trio. You can fault the community all you fancy and quote Yoshida a thousand times. Opinions are not going to change. Dragoon has soared to the second most uploaded job since mid Deltascape; second only to, surprise of all surprise, Bard. This trend will only continue in the same manner Dark Knight inevitably eclipsed Paladin and White Mage struggled against Astro back in Heavensward. In a game so heavily influenced by damage and little else, people will gravitate towards damage.

Speaking as someone who's had to do raid recruitment, yeah, Bards can actually be pretty hard to find.

And straight up, as long as refresh is in its current implementation, you will never not take at least one, and you will never suffer for taking two, even if disembowel were gone.

I disagree. Machinist is always being subbed out with increasing frequency for Summoner, Monk and even Black Mage. Piercing is the only thing keeping it alive right now. Given the job's incredibly unpopularity, I suspect many groups would ask you switch to Bard or even run double caster.

They definitely need a buff if piercing goes away.

[Kabooa]

I disagree. Machinist is always being subbed out with increasing frequency for Summoner, Monk and even Black Mage. Piercing is the only thing keeping it alive right now. Given the job's incredibly unpopularity, I suspect many groups would ask you switch to Bard or even run double caster.

They definitely need a buff if piercing goes away.

And then Bard gets kicked to the curb. Better buff Bard.

Oh and we're back exactly where we were. Better buff X.

But then we need to buff Y.

At some point, we have to accept that some utilities are heavily undervalued, some are overvalued, and stop constantly adjusting damage numbers.

[Dualgunner]

I think now we have to define "niche". Is niche total uploads? That's a number unavailable to us at the moment, we only have the last two weeks. According to those two weeks though, Machinist is even more niche than Black Mage.

Is niche top speedkills? I just did a recount: Summoner reigns king in the speedkills, with 25 of 50 total spots in the top 10 of each fight. Machinist only has 14/50, and Monk is in 11/50 times (they actually did a trip melee kill of Clown, the mad lads). I suppose it is niche that triple melee edges out Machinist, especially since this is one of the few tiers that will allow such a comp to go unpunished in some fights, however Summoner is very unsurprisingly king of the hill in my eyes.

[Kabooa]

I think now we have to define "niche". Is niche total uploads? That's a number unavailable to us at the moment, we only have the last two weeks. According to those two weeks though, Machinist is even more niche than Black Mage.

Is niche top speedkills? I just did a recount: Summoner reigns king in the speedkills, with 25 of 50 total spots in the top 10 of each fight. Machinist only has 14/50, and Monk is in 11/50 times (they actually did a trip melee kill of Clown, the mad lads). I suppose it is niche that triple melee edges out Machinist, especially since this is one of the few tiers that will allow such a comp to go unpunished in some fights, however Summoner is very unsurprisingly king of the hill in my eyes.

Niche here would be "top tier speed kill".

It's like saying there's no point in running a marathon unless you place first, second, or third.

[Dualgunner]

Niche here would be "top tier speed kill".

It's like saying there's no point in running a marathon unless you place first, second, or third.

You can't define a vague term with another vague term. What's the cutoff? Top 20? Top 100? I posited that Top 10 was a good cutoff, so if you disagree you need to set goalposts so we can see what is being met and where.

[Kabooa]

You can't define a vague term with another vague term. What's the cutoff? Top 20? Top 100? I posited that Top 10 was a good cutoff, so if you disagree you need to set goalposts so we can see what is being met and where.

Then I'll make the claim that 'speed killing' is the niche. Every job is currently capable of meeting and exceeding the enrage, so claiming that Disembowel is somehow required for Machinist is wrong. The two, bard and Machinist, put neck and neck against each other come out close to even.

[Dualgunner]

Then I'll make the claim that 'speed killing' is the niche. Every job is currently capable of meeting and exceeding the enrage, so claiming that Disembowel is somehow required for Machinist is wrong. The two, bard and Machinist, put neck and neck against each other come out close to even.

Let's ignore for a moment you're talking about viability then, and go apply this definition to your earlier quote:

I won't claim to know why Machinist is under represented, but relative strength to Bard, they are pretty close to one another. As it stands, Machinist is already edged out with Disembowel in favor of taking a Summoner or Monk, but those are very niche cases.

Okay. Yes, in the niche of speedkilling, MCH is beaten out by SMN quite handily. This, however, extends past the niche as well when we look at total uploads, where Machinist is beaten by every other DPS job.

Machinist, in general, is edged out in favor of other jobs; both in the speedkill mentality and in the total mentality.

Moment over btw. Every job is viable: perfect balance achieved then?

EDIT: A few BRD v MCHs
https://xivrdps.herokuapp.com/encoun...Yj8w4DGdfab/27
https://xivrdps.herokuapp.com/encoun...my1VHKjqc6XP/7
https://xivrdps.herokuapp.com/encoun...nGxH6rpzV1J/22
https://xivrdps.herokuapp.com/encoun...m6n98wbrjNB/45
https://xivrdps.herokuapp.com/encoun...7dBg2pMcjzX/30
:thinking: