Are any of the numbers thrown around from real combat, or do people still honestly think that a dummy-parse is indicative of actual combat performance? Melee DPS and casters lose a lot of their dummy number when dealing with these things called raid mechanics, while Bards, historically, do not. Machinist, as a new alternative to Bard, was balanced with that in mind. If you're between 800-900 DPS during an actual encounter, that's nothing to be ashamed of.