My long-standing gripes with MCH and physical ranged in general

[CKNovel]

My static until recently had a mch, he really likes his job and only stopped raiding with us for personal reasons. When he can rejoin I would love to have him. Think you just need some friends who are not so concerned for other people's opinions. Their damage could do maybee do with another nudge up but they are not a terrible job at all.
You had one bad meta slave static, they suck. Find nicer people.
Maybe stop with the hatred towards melee as well, if you hadn't noticed melee do not like the dumbing down of their job (rip monk positional)

Yeah I played with that mentality for the entirety of Heavensward, Stormblood and Shadowbringers. In fact, I've never met people who asked anyone to swap jobs.
But the experience feels bland and frustrating to not contribute as much as other roles/jobs.

It's even worse when you play with nice people.

I swapped to tank, I don't care about doing big damage, I just want to feel useful to the group.
I initially chose MCH because it was a support DPS and it had guns, theme and gameplay it had it all for me. I'm absolutely not attracted to DNC and BRD.

[AxelDH]

I don't feel like Machinist needs any more damage buffs at the moment. Take a look at the Savage statistics for the last couple of weeks at the 95th percentile, there's barely any difference between the physical ranged now. Certainly not enough to blacklist the class.

But there clearly hasn't been much MCH representation in Ultimate so far. Perhaps people aren't bringing them for reasons other than damage, such as:

- A bad reputation. People have heard 'MCH Bad' so they believe this to be true
- Lack of alternative utility. Dancers can dash around and can heal. Bards have Natures Minne, Wardens Paean and even Repelling Shot I guess (Paean might be useless in this fight, but prog groups wouldn't have known that in advance)
- Less familiarity with the class / already switched mains. Because MCH was behind the other ranged DPS for months now, a lot of physical ranged players had already switched to BRD or DNC, and there's no reason to switch back to a class that they are less familiar on, just to have roughly equal DPS but less utility.

I think what Machinist really needs to make it more desirable is to gain some unique utility skills. And they could honestly double down on the utility side of things with the ranged physical role in general. Like... they could give a defibrillator tool to MCH for an in combat res, bring back Palisade, allow in combat Peleton, add a regen song. Those kind of things.

[CKNovel]

I don't feel like Machinist needs any more damage buffs at the moment. Take a look at the Savage statistics for the last couple of weeks at the 95% percentile, there's barely any difference between the physical ranged now. Certainly not enough to blacklist the class.

But certainly not enough to make the MCH valuable.
MCH identity is to be "pure DPS" but as said before, it doesn't do much more DPS than the other ranged and falls behind against multiple targets.
And again, it's a gauge based job, multiple donwtime only hurts the MCH. It used to be its strength when you could sit on resources for a big burst next phase but there's simply too much downtime to generate resources. And when there is a lot of uptime? It's multiple targets Ricochet and Bio Blaster can't reach. I'm not sure about Chain saw.

It's like trying a car for 10.000 that only go slightly faster than the others, except the other have utility such as GPS.

It has nothing to do with familiarity or "reputation". Even after the prog is done, HC players still believes that MCH is just the worst choice.
MCH simply lacks value over the two other ranges and its weaknesses reveal themselves in DSR. It's that simple.

[AxelDH]

But certainly not enough to make the MCH valuable.
MCH identity is to be "pure DPS" but as said before, it doesn't do much more DPS than the other ranged and falls behind against multiple targets.
And again, it's a gauge based job, multiple donwtime only hurts the MCH. It used to be its strength when you could sit on resources for a big burst next phase but there's simply too much downtime to generate resources. And when there is a lot of uptime? It's multiple targets Ricochet and Bio Blaster can't reach. I'm not sure about Chain saw.

Fair comment on the multi target DPS I guess, there are a few phases where DNC and BRD will probably pull ahead due to this.

In any case, the main point I was getting at is, rather than going any further down the route of 'pure DPS', I think MCH could do with getting some new support moves to make it stand out instead.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

If MCH were on a par with sam and blm to a point of competing for a spot I think we would just end up with double ranged being very common no? The free movement is very advantageous, why go to the bother of try harding to greed the uptime and positional when u can just pew pew from anywhere, and BRD/DNC are still very beneficial for prog alongside redmage. The support jobs were all more popular than their more selfish dps counterparts on the whole. Not a lot of Sam clears in early days for DRS either, a handful of BLM and MCH just got their first clear yday or smth. Meanwhile plenty dnc,brd, rdm, mnk and OP ninja.

For early prog and learning a fight it will always be preferable to choose the job with the utility to aid in clearing mechanics and fixing mistakes. Pure dps does nothing when you are in dire need of healing or mitigation. Even if all the selfish jobs got a fat buff you wouldn't see more than one in a prog party imo.

6.2 I think MCH will probably get yet more potency buffs. Hopefully any other changes make the job feel more useful for people.

[CKNovel]

Mobility has been debunked since 5.2. The highly mobile tier was an advantage to casters, not ranged.
And with all the extra instant casts, they're more mobile than ever.
Finally, SMN gameplay is basically a ranged at this point.
Bonus, uptime is insanely easy with recent content, especially in Ultimate where you either have massive hitbox or bosses that don't do mechanic during uptime.

In practice, if you have a Melee/Flex/SMN/Ranged, you already have 2 ranged in your comp.

If SQEX still refuses to increase the potency more than 20, they need to add more utility. I think everyone agrees that "Pure DPS" doesn't work for MCH.

Oh there's a first MCH clea-Oh lord. I didn't expected it to be that low.

[Tsumdere]

Mobility has been debunked since 5.2. The highly mobile tier was an advantage to casters, not ranged.
And with all the extra instant casts, they're more mobile than ever.
Finally, SMN gameplay is basically a ranged at this point.
Bonus, uptime is insanely easy with recent content, especially in Ultimate where you either have massive hitbox or bosses that don't do mechanic during uptime.

In practice, if you have a Melee/Flex/SMN/Ranged, you already have 2 ranged in your comp.

If SQEX still refuses to increase the potency more than 20, they need to add more utility. I think everyone agrees that "Pure DPS" doesn't work for MCH.

Oh there's a first MCH clea-Oh lord. I didn't expected it to be that low.

I understand the sample size is just 1, but that damage is abysmal. It does confirm what I was feeling while progging. Maybe if a few more MCH clear and it stays ridiculously low, they'll give us emergency buffs.

*copium*