Lock and Load: The Reassembled Machinist Guide

[Cetonis]

The top of the lists consistently show BRDs being ahead of MCH.

... no they don't. Everything from the 99th percentile down to the 70th has MCH a bit ahead on A4S, a little more ahead on Thordan, and BRD a bit ahead on A3S. A1S and A2S are fight designs highly unlikely to be replicated, so it's more or less fair to ignore them. The 100th percentile most-gamed MCH-boosted Bard parses also don't really matter.

MCH needed for HC to catch up to Foe, for Rain to matter less (check, thanks to materia) and for their valley DPS to be a bit better without greatly adding to their overall DPS. Instead SE did nothing about the latter, and made HC blow Foe way out of the water - to the point that BRD is now further behind MCH than the vice versa ever was on any normal-style fight.

[Judge_Xero]

MCH needed for HC to catch up to Foe, for Rain to matter less (check, thanks to materia) and for their valley DPS to be a bit better without greatly adding to their overall DPS. Instead SE did nothing about the latter, and made HC blow Foe way out of the water - to the point that BRD is now further behind MCH than the vice versa ever was on any normal-style fight.

The HC boost is pretty amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if people change their party comps to full melee with MCH. With how well MCH, DRG and MNK can AOE and if Tanks are still DPSing hard it's going to be a real game changer.

I'm not sure if that's a direction SE would be hoping for, but at least in a single caster with BRD, Foes, BV, ROD and Healer DPS it's hard to say which will be better. That is probably the greatest balancing act between BRD/MCH because of their difference in party dynamics is Full Melee VS Melee/Caster

[Cetonis]

The HC boost is pretty amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if people change their party comps to full melee with MCH. With how well DRG and MNK can AOE and if Tanks are still DPSing hard it's going to be a real game changer.

I'm not sure if that's a direction SE would be hoping for, but at least in a single caster with BRD, Foes, BV, ROD and Healer DPS it's hard to say which will be better.

I actually think if SMN didn't get the Ruin 3 buff, they might have been the ones left in the dust (in favor of BRD+MCH if no BLM was available). With the SMN boost and the BLM QoL to aid their progression woes, it seems SE is at least somewhat cognizant of the caster vs. triple physical + MCH situation.

Rain's debuff will be worth a lot less once materia is melded up, and Foe is very definitely worse than HC now in single-caster comps. So whether BRD is better for a given fight will depend on whether or not it allows them to leverage multiple targets enough to do at least +50 or so self-DPS to beat out Hypercharge.