#NerfBRD

[Dualgunner]

Except... it wouldn't be. BRD's popularity is not only in how good the game is, but how it's arguably the best designed job in the expansion. People like it's gameplay, not simply it's damage.

People liking its gameplay wouldn't mean much if it wasn't also one of the best jobs to have in your team. People liked RDM, but once it became more cemented that the job was really only good for progression, it fell off. People liked SAM and BLM, but again, as more and more people realized that they didn't bring the adequate damage to compensate for the fact they're not team players.

Conversely, lots of people dislike SMN. They like the idea of being a SMN well enough, but they hate how SMN has been implemented in this game, and there are always criticisms of its gameplay whether that be its awkward three-segment-rotation, bahamut not being responsive enough, and egis being underwhelming. In my experience, it's about as clunky as MCH. Yet, because it brings the damage, it's the most played caster, even after nerfs blowing RDM and BLM out of the water and is the fourth most played job this tier, right behind the Meta Three.

Nerfing BRD won't change the landscape right now whatsoever because people dislike MCH's gameplay by and large. Will you see more MCHs? Sure, but the numbers aren't going to swing from 43k BRD to half that. Nor will MCH suddenly balloon upwards. At best, you'll see a handful more MCHs. And even that is being generous given how universally disliked the Stormblood iteration has been. A nerfed BRD will still be overwhelmingly preferred for its gameplay.

At best you'll see a handful more MCHs...and a lot of people who prefer playing MCH will be able to justify to themselves their desire to play their favorite job to their party, instead of quietly swapping to BRD themselves because of how much better it is for its own slot.

This is like saying SMN shouldn't have seen a slight nerf at the end of Sigma because it didn't immediately make BLM or RDM the most preferred jobs. No, BLM and RDM aren't suddenly as or more popular than SMN, but it's a damn sight easier to justify being a RDM now because I'm not dragging rDPS down by a huge margin when playing my preferred job. Even then, it was only a slight nerf to SMN, and a buff to both RDM and BLM--something the likes of which could be done for MCH in relation to BRD.

My point was MCH was meta at varying points this expansion; both throughout Deltascape and into early Sigma. Dismantle was also considered better for UcoB. Despite its highly competitive status, people still wouldn't play it. MCH spent all of Deltascape dead last in terms of popularity. Hence why nerfing BRD, which I don't inherently disagree with, won't change the landscape.

It was meta because the casters were garbage through most of this expansion. What flavor of garbage did you want, the turret that needs the whole party to adjust to it and doesn't reward the party for strategies that do so (BLM)? A slightly less turret that did less damage than even BRD at certain places (RDM)? Or a jumbled mess of mechanics and spells that the devs kind of barfed up and hoped was good (SMN)? ...or perhaps, Machinist, who not only didn't need to be adjusted to, but was just as mobile as bard, but enhanced bard's burst potential and increased healer damage potential even more?

Notice into Sigmascape, Summoner was what overtook Machinist. Summoner was fixed up a bit and given a gigantic damage upgrade, getting close to being the highest damaging job in the game. As well, whenever Machinist buffs are brought up, it's casters who need to be considered because they're the ones MCH would compete against--not BRD. Which brings us back to...Machinist cannot be buffed, but its competitor apparently cannot be nerfed.

Currently mch is being left out and overshadowed in meta by casters/brd, because it has less to contribute and people would rather have overpowered casters with raise than a gun wielding clunky class.
Mch deserves better.

I wouldn't say it's the casters that are OP in this equation. When MCH has to fight for a completely separate spot in the team than BRD, despite the intent being that it competed with BRD, I don't think it's the jobs that traditionally fight for the fourth spot that are to blame.

[Ilan]

Personally, I believe both need to happen. There's nothing stopping both from being a valid option. And (hopefully) we all agree that leaving it alone isn't the best idea either.

I don't think so because we all know how good SE is with nerfing things without destroying a class completly.

Have you even played Machinist to any extent?

The job actually plays pretty well when it's as intended (RE: low latency). About the only downside is that wildfire interludes don't have much going on, but given the frenzy of the Wildfire Overheat segment, the calmer segment isn't unwelcome.

The "Clunk" generally refers to two scenarios.

A) Latency
B) Player error

There are more minute ones that are experienced by players better than you and me.

Bard brings more. The general consensus is those that bring more do less themselves. Given the current state of the game, the only reasonable requisition is that Bard do less themselves.

A gameplay adjustment to Machinist is unlikely, and even then doesn't address the issue. A buff is out of the question because then you're just displacing Casters yet again, and it's a band aid fix at best. A full on face lifting rework is out of the question until the expansion, which will likely be -7 months- from now, unless they've been working on it since Sigma, which I somehow doubt.

I suppose you could do nothing, but that's not really the context of the thread, and that's hardly any fun to discuss.

So then tell me why there are not more MCH's if there is nothing wrong with it. Oh right probably because most people don't have a low ping or the gameplay of a MCH feels just bad for them. Don't try to tell me its because people don't want them because people will always want you in your static if you are good on your class, no matter what you play.
And no i don't play MCH because i dislike the whole concept.

[Kitfox]

I'm not sure I quite understand. Is the argument that BRD should be nerfed because there's actually something wrong with BRD...?

Yes, BRD should be nerfed because they scale unfairly in a balance breaking manner by stacking critical hit. It's not that their skillset should be nerfed but their gear scaling should. Their procs need to be independent of any straight attribute factors, similar to Straighter Shot's flat 20% chance, because otherwise their damage increases much faster than anyone else. You get a problem where BRD is either underpowered at the start of an expansion and balanced at the end, or balanced at the start and overpowered at the end. The latter is what we have currently.

This is not a MCH specific issue but it further makes MCH's QoL issues worse because MCH is the direct role competitor to BRD but they're not even close to competitive in dps. If MCH had much higher relative dps, you could at least justify playing it because it was effective, but currently it's not only the worse dps, but also suffering from QoL issues that prevent most people from playing it effectively.

[Connor]

Well, given the looks of this thread it doesn’t seem like the developers will ever dare touch Bard at all in future, if not only from the sheer outcry it would cause

Maybe they’ll remember Machinist is a thing next expansion. Though, I wouldn’t be surprised if it became so amazing next expansion that it made casters redundant lol.

I wonder if next time this year, this exact thread will return but it’ll be Bards asking for Machinists to get nerfed. Then the follow expansion has, in a shocking twist, Red Mage become the ultimate guaranteed raid job.

[Lastelli]

Uh, no you didn't. BRD has far better support and is easier to approach. Furthermore, MCH is still competitive despite its many flaws. The main issue is people dislike playing it.

Come on, let's not pretend here. It's true that MCH's design is flawed, but the only reason why BRD is so popular is because it's the better option from a rdps perspective, plain and simple. Make MCH a superior option and suddenly way more people will play MCH. At the very least, ALL speedrunners will choose MCH over BRD. Ignoring for a second the fact that MCH has a few mechanical problems, efficiency is a very important factor for a good portion of the players that upload their logs on fflogs. Give them a high risk-high reward job, and they will play it. The problem is that right now MCH is a high risk-low reward job. Unless you want to convince me that in the hypothetical scenario where MCH deals 1k more dps than BRD, nothing would change.

Again, I'm not denying that design flaws are part of the reason why MCH is so unpopular, but completely ignoring the fact that BRD is OP right now and that that's a big factor in MCH unpopularity is just being intellectually dishonest.

[Kabooa]

I said dead weight without a DRG. Don't omit part of my statement when making your argument. Furthermore, your argument is self defeating. BRD was still overwhelmingly popular in Deltascape—significantly more so than MCH. The argument between us has never been MCH shouldn't do more damage, but merely you're assertion nerfing BRD would abruptly make MCH go from sub 8k to well beyond double when it's been the least popular job since Heavensward.

Not every Bard and Machinist has a dragoon. Bard and Machinist easily bring their fair share without Dragoon.

As I stated, the amount of tools they bring only makes sense in the scenario where Dragoon isn't there. Claiming that somehow Bard is deadweight without Dragoon is false. The -dragoon- is dead weight without the Bard, because Ninja, Monk, and Samurai are all better when no Ranged role is in the party.

[Kabooa]

So then tell me why there are not more MCH's if there is nothing wrong with it. Oh right probably because most people don't have a low ping or the gameplay of a MCH feels just bad for them. Don't try to tell me its because people don't want them because people will always want you in your static if you are good on your class, no matter what you play.
And no i don't play MCH because i dislike the whole concept.

1. There are not more Machinists because their direct analogue is unambiguously better in almost every case. Just looking at data alone, Machinist maintains a slight lead, like less than 1%, that steadily falls as player skill rises, until it's eclipsed in the 95-100th range.
2. Combine this with the lower latency thresh hold (Bard feels just as bad when you slap on another 150 ping) and Rapid Fire, and it's more difficult to effectively achieve the same DPS - But with less party support.
3. People are more likely to take a machinist over a Black Mage or Samurai even if a Bard is already in their party.
4. Developers obviously test stuff in house on a private server with, guess what, low / nonexistent ping.

[whiskeybravo]

Make MCH a superior option and suddenly way more people will play MCH. At the very least, ALL speedrunners will choose MCH over BRD.

Or... You just make MCH/BRD meta again

I don't think anyone would disagree that if a job is clunky, but effective, it will be played more than a job that is both clunky and ineffective. But I think MCH has suffered a bit of what DRK has had to go through this whole expansion, started out with ? marks which progressively became bigger and more apparent as content scaled up. The damage was done early on, and even now after significant buffs to DRK their numbers are still pretty low compared to PLD/WAR, so MCH is not likely to recover at this point regardless of buffs/nerfs.

SE could patch up some QoL features in the mean time. I don't think they'd rework BRD as Kitfox mentions, so the goal should be to make incremental adjustments that would put MCH in a better position moving into 5.0. Give MCH mains something to look forward to, a reason to level it up to 80 instead of switching to BRD because it's a safer bet.

[Kabooa]

Or... You just make MCH/BRD meta again.

Which is why this is a #NerfBard thread, not a #BuffMach thread.

We presumably all understand the ramifications of buffing Machinist to an equitable position compared to Bard.

[MoroMurasaki]

Which is why this is a #NerfBard thread, not a #BuffMach thread.

We presumably all understand the ramifications of buffing Machinist to an equitable position compared to Bard.

I hope nothing in the game going forward is buffed to the ridiculous level BRD is now no matter any disadvantages they've seen in the past. At the end of the day BRD is taking up far too much space and the only answers to that fact are ignoring it or bringing it in line with casters and MCH. Since BRDs seem very opposed to losing utility it seems like the best option becomes dps nerfs.