Ninja vs. Dragoon

[Zophar]

first off, we dont actually know if machinist will be piercing, im hoping it will be blunt as they seem to have more musket type weapons than they do typical bullets, but we'll see.

While I guess it's not impossible that they're using potato guns and bean bag launchers, from a purely lore standpoint, the machinists of Ishgard are fighting dragons. The idea that they'd be fighting giant creatures with armored scales with blunt rounds instead of piercing makes, literally, no sense, by any metric, and if they did do it, it would be for literally no other reason than making mnks feel better about themselves.

So, regardless of how you look at it, one additional set will lose you either mitigation or threat, because of the opportunity cost of doing a second maim inside of the maim buff window. You can make the case that you don't need the threat, but the cost is there.

It may seem that way, but honestly, the extra 30% raw damage (20% from maim and 10% from eye) actually fairly well balances out the loss of a butcher block round. And if you can hold hate fine while keeping eye or path up, there is no actual loss. If you can't keep hate and maintain your chosen storm move, you are seriously undergeared. That is not a debate. that is a fact.

[Alahra]

While I guess it's not impossible that they're using potato guns and bean bag launchers, from a purely lore standpoint, the machinists of Ishgard are fighting dragons. The idea that they'd be fighting giant creatures with armored scales with blunt rounds instead of piercing makes, literally, no sense, by any metric, and if they did do it, it would be for literally no other reason than making mnks feel better about themselves.

Many of the MNK weapons in the game would really be more accurately categorized as piercing or slashing. I'm not sure how much they care about matching up damage type with flavor/lore. NIN could have been piercing too, at least for their "stabbers," but they fit into the game better as slashing. I'd wager bludgeoning is more likely for Machinist because there's no class that benefits from Dragon Kick's damage debuff outside of MNK itself. Piercing's possible but stacks the deck in favor of DRG, which they probably don't want.

[Zophar]

stuff

Again though, when it comes to nin, it makes sense, daggers have a duality with them where they can honestly be used in either way. There are a number of reasons why slashing makes sense. If it were just rog, piercing or slashing would make sense, but nin fits in better as a slashing dps. Also, I think it went with slashing less for the fact that there were already 2 piercing dps, as they fact that there were 0 slashing dps.

The mnk weapon thing.... yeah. You're right on that call, and SE has even commented on this in the past, saying they'll try to get back into the blunt aesthetic.

As far as mcn, ignoring resistance decreasers, mnk still has way more utility than drg, and if we're talking about a situation where people are going to be super picky about what jobs they bring, odds are, they are NOT bringing both a brd and a mcn, so basically moot point there. And as I said before, unlike NIN, from a lore, and strategic standpoint, while various forms of blunt ammunition exist, primarily reserved for non lethal suppression, fighting armored opponents with blunt bullets makes, 0 sense. Like, not any sense in the slightest. I would actually go as far as to say, that if they designed mcn to use blunt bullets, it would, in fact, be stupid. And I'm sure the game designers see that too.

[Alahra]

Also, I think it went with slashing less for the fact that there were already 2 piercing dps, as they fact that there were 0 slashing dps.

You could essentially make the same argument for Machinist to use bludgeoning DPS, though. We currently only have one of those, and right now we have 2 piercing. If Machinist is piercing, that would mean 1 bludgeoning and 3 piercing, whereas 2 bludgeoning and 2 piercing would strike a better balance in variety. It really comes down to how SE decides to describe it (and also what they feel is better for overall group composition balance). Some pen and paper RPGs have classified black powder bullets as bludgeoning before, so it's probably not really out of the question.

With both BRD and Machinst getting "caster" stances, I think it's fairly possible their DPS will be more comparable to caster DPS in the expansion when they needed for utility. What that will mean, if true, is that if Machinist *is* piercing, DRG+BRD+Machinist will likely be fairly potent (outside, of course, of fight mechanics requiring magical damage).

[ColdestHeaven]

Many of the MNK weapons in the game would really be more accurately categorized as piercing or slashing. I'm not sure how much they care about matching up damage type with flavor/lore. NIN could have been piercing too, at least for their "stabbers," but they fit into the game better as slashing. I'd wager bludgeoning is more likely for Machinist because there's no class that benefits from Dragon Kick's damage debuff outside of MNK itself. Piercing's possible but stacks the deck in favor of DRG, which they probably don't want.

It's not just a matter of weapon, but how you use that too. You cut and slice most of the time with daggers, regardless of the weapon. Same with the monk.

Bullets? They are made to pierce. While it IS true that bludgeoning is underused, I strongly doubt that MCN is not going to use piercing. MNK has other ways of supporting the party: not buffing the MCN is not something that will make DRG overpowered.

Edit: Zophar beat me to it.