To FFXIV Team From a Concerned Machinist

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Machinist cannot be buffed to Bard's level because that affects caster balance; it does this because of how inherently good Bard is. Bard is probably the most important job in the composition, it's why most meta comps are built with a Bard in mind. If you buffed Machinist to the same level as Bard, perfectly balanced against it, they're not going to fight for the same slot in the group, and instead slot somebody else out so they can party together; we saw this in Deltascape, and we saw this in Creator. This is why Machinist cannot compete with Bard right now.

We saw this in Creator and Deltascape because nothing was done to accommodate the Casters or address why Physical Range jobs have dominated. While I cannot disagree your suggestion could work, it remains a lazy approach when the linchpin here is what Moro brought up: Bard is omitted from the range war because it's virtually guaranteed a spot. There is no reason why all five range jobs can't be balanced against one another. Should Blue Mage release, we'll have potentially five melee DPS vying for a spot. If it works for the melee, it can work for range. Which circles us back to why the Casters always lose in a war with Bard and Machinist.

Simply put, they have no answer to Refresh. That is perhaps the biggest factor. We've previously discussed Mana Shift is basically trash. Another factor is the limited support they do offer isn't great. Embolden gets meme'd on for a reason and Devotion isn't exactly stellar either. The supposed trade off is Casters bring higher damage, but outside maybe Black Mage, this is quite debatable. At least when it comes to rDPS.

In the end, enforcing a Caster/Range dichotomy can work. I just see it as a lazy approach when all five jobs could be looked at and balanced against each other. Frankly, I suspect we see this constant issue because the devs haven't done this and merely assume we'll want one of each. So I suppose if that's the philosophy they plan to stick with, then yes, enforce it. Even if I don't particularly like it.

[Grimoire-M]

Simply put, they have no answer to Refresh. That is perhaps the biggest factor. We've previously discussed Mana Shift is basically trash. Another factor is the limited support they do offer isn't great. Embolden gets meme'd on for a reason and Devotion isn't exactly stellar either. The supposed trade off is Casters bring higher damage, but outside maybe Black Mage, this is quite debatable. At least when it comes to rDPS.

In the end, enforcing a Caster/Range dichotomy can work. I just see it as a lazy approach when all five jobs could be looked at and balanced against each other. Frankly, I suspect we see this constant issue because the devs haven't done this and merely assume we'll want one of each. So I suppose if that's the philosophy they plan to stick with, then yes, enforce it. Even if I don't particularly like it.

This is part of why I've advocated for combining Refresh and Mana Shift into one button, effectively acting as Mana Goad. It's also why I would like to see more self-sustain in the healer/caster classes that need it. AST could survive without Refresh, but RDM needs their own MP cooldown badly in order to make up for the loss. Ideally Refresh shouldn't be required at all. It should be a 'recover from death' button like Goad/Tactician are, not a 'let's skip piety' button, but the latter is inevitable if SE doesn't want to make Piety better (such as tweaking it to instead boost healing potency at a high enough rate to consider it over DET & DHIT in prog). That's the ultimate reason why 'a' ranged DPS is required at all. Making it so the healer MP economy is now split across two ranged/caster dps in a more fair manner means you'll want at least two of those classes for your healers.

As for what that would look like: Use the same tick potency & duration as Refresh, but only apply it to a single target ally. Not including self. Give it to the casters and ranged DPS, then give Goad and Diversion to the ranged DPS to replace Tactician.

Embolden is better than it looks, but really needs to apply to all classes to show that. Same goes for Brotherhood. Devotion has extra value in specific windows but isn't a game breaker by any means. I have more problems with Contagion/Radiant Shield than it even after the nerf to the latter, but they don't have to deal with their raid utility, just pet QoL. TA and Piercing both need to be looked at on the melee side to break those required slots up too. If Slashing/Blunt/Piercing were removed I'd hope they would add a NIN-only version of the slashing debuff to TA to keep NIN's personal dps where it is while still nerfing their overall raid dps. Beyond that, BRD needs to not scale on crit rate raid buffs.

Saving MCH at this point looks nearly impossible without a full on rework regardless, but all of those things need to happen alongside it in order to keep them balanced against other classes in the process.