Ayy MCH has 8 times less clears on the Final Omega than Bard.

[Wayfinder3]

While i would love MCH to see adjustments to it's play style, it's place in the meta cannot be altered. Caster dps balance has finally overcome double ranged meta power and buffing mch will only cause an entire role to perish for the sake of one job. In truth, bard NEEDS a nerf to it's overall utility and rdps. ranged physical dps also need to have their identity in this game revised as these 2 jobs have the highest potential to be meta defining if HW is anything to go by. 100% uptime, mechanical flexibility, sheer amounts of rdps utility and defensive utility is something 1 role shouldn't be able to do while having comparable dps to casters(all of which you lose dps for excess mobility, even smn as ruin 2 is weaker than 3) and Melee(who have poor uptime and the role most susceptible to mechanics) ranged have neither of these issues and these should be considered when deciding to adjust them. bard needs a fair rdps nerf while mch can stand to use a buff in that department. I also think their utility needs to have conflicting issues. in truth brd and mch being able to work from each others utility while casters can't isn't very fair. parties should be punished for bringing both of them or at least their synergy together shouldn't be as good as it is.

[lulunami]

I like playing MCH more than BRD, but in terms of math BRD is just so much better for the raid group. The problem MCH always faces is that its current play-style is too intimidating for newbies/novices compared to BRD. MCH always had a high learning curve. MCH can takes advantage of party raid buffs the most out of any job. However, messing up cooldown alignment/Wildfire on MCH is so much more punishing than BRD.

Gearing up MCH in a group with a NIN and a BRD is too tough. Realistically, MCH would be the last DEX player to get upgrades, especially accessories. It is probably better to take a caster for gear's sake.

MCH has always been unpopular even back in 3.0. Even when MCH was better than BRD in most comps throughout 3.0, unpopular Bow-mage was still played a lot more than MCH.

[Aeliott]

Snip

I think thats the ultimate problem, Bard is both better AND significantly less of a headache to play. Comparing percentiles for both so far this tier, any point where MCH is higher is by an insignificant sliver. In the case of O10S (and possibly 11 if I recall, I don't have the tab open right now), at the higher percentiles bard actually pulls ahead by a notable margin.

In Heavensward it felt rewarding, and while eventually MCH was generally seen as the more favourable of the 2, if you only take 1, there was a balance of support between them. Now most of that support has been dumped into Bard. It's evident they tried to make MCH a more raw damage option to compensate but be it job mechanics meshing poorly with fight design, and/or the ridiculous crit procs bard can get, it can't even surpass in terms of personal damage either...assuming equal skill on both, there is just 0 benefit to having MCH over Brd. And that's just personal damage, requiem + voice + passive crit is better than hypercharge. No amount of OH tweaks or fewer pieces of Skill Speed gear will change anything.

[Kitfox]

Bard is overpowered and needs a nerf. Or Machinist needs a buff to compete against the utility, however according to unofficial info this will not happen.

Also reminding of the key usability fixes MCH needs, but will probably never get:
- No Overheat timer until Flamethrower is interrupted. (Also the canceling without any heat ticks is retarded.)
- Change Rapid Fire to better accommodate weaving oGCDs.
- Get rid of Gauss Barrel and Turret reactivation.

Waiting for the 5.0 full rework when they have another chance to get it all wrong. (3.0 and 4.0 releases have not given a good precedent.)

(Also the one-handed rifle thing with the flips? I don't think that's working too well. Might be just me though.)

[RedAffinity]

I like MCH because:

1. Aesthetics — I love the armor, the sounds, the animations and theme. SE did a great job here so they deserve praise. When I play FFXIV I'm not staring at a spreadsheet with figures, there's some element of enjoyment here from the theme of the job and it's hands down my favorite.
2. Buff/Debuff — The fact that I don't have to worry about any kind of debuff rotation. I love that I have to keep a self-buff rotation instead (bullets, hotshot etc.)

I don't like MCH because:

1. Latency — Please give 1 extra second to Wildfire
2. Aesthetics — Please let me fully hide the bullet box and the gauss barrel
3. Damage — it's easy to fall behind on MCH by combat design. I think a very slight increase to DPS can make the job more accessible for the every-player who maybe isnt at the bleeding edge in skill, ping, BIS etc.

[AdvisorX]

Is SE looking into balancing MCH anytime soon?

[Caitlyn]

I love MCH because:

Style: Most skills may be weird, but the look cool AF.
Gameplay: It may feels clunky and clusterf***ed, but it feels so good, when you re "in the flow"
Popularity: To be honest, I like playing unpopular classes. Better be one of 1.000 MCH instead of being one of 20.000 BRDs.


I hate MCh because:

Latency: I absolutely hate it, when turret overdrive or the last cooldown in overheat hits just a millisecond too late, because of server delay, ticks or whatever. Increase overheat to 11 seconds and make overdrive hitting instant and we re all fine.
Burst: I cant say how much I hate when my burst-damage is dependend on so much things within those 10s wildfire. Crits, DHs, group buffs, server delay... . Play MCH in PF Savage Raids and you know what I mean.
Gauss Barrel: Ugly as hell. While SMN got their pet glamours, MCH got just a lame textcommand to hide it for themself only. Wow.
Unforgiveness: RNG and group buffs may be one thing. But if you die, you will never recover from it. Its even more frustrating, when you got killed by other people. Any mistake, even the smallest ones, are so punishing. Forgot turret after overdrive? Misclick your gauss barrel? Interrupt flamethrower to early? Accidental overheat? Boss disappeared to early? NIN does TA to early/late? DRG died? Nearly anything can be a DPS decrease.

[Darkpaw]

The ironic thing is.. everyone talks about making overheat 11s to alleviate the most extreme issues.. when it's not the only option... taking wildfire and overheat and putting them on a gcd counter ala RDM's embolden skill.. would solve some of the most extreme complaints of the wf/oh window and even from a programming standpoint wouldn't be that difficult to implement.. at this point we can rail against the creators all we want.. 4.5 will not come with a solution... nor will any of the 4.4x patches.. MCH was chosen to be the forgotten class of this expac. Like paladin was last expac. At this point all we can do is continue to wave our hands at SE going "Notice us Senpai!! We need help!!" and pray they actually listen to the ideas the community has brought forward and that in 5.0 we will be rewarded with a machinist that is as good as it can be. Or atleast back to being as good as it was in Heavensward.. really anything would be a step up from what they've done in Stormblood to machinist.. so tl:dr look at the Brightside peoples.. it can only get better from here.

[Caitlyn]

tl:dr look at the Brightside peoples.. it can only get better from here.

5.0:
- Ammunition reduced to from 3 to 1.
- Wildfire duration reduced from 10s to 5s.
- Gauss Barrel added to your Turret.
- Overheat added to Turret.
- Rapidfire and Reassemble removed.

[Darkpaw]

I mean.. that's fair, but if you're going to that length to make this the most hated class in the game.. you may as well delete the entire job from the game and just say "ah yea.. we didn't really think this out so.. it's gone now.. sorry"