MCH..The dying breed?

[Velhart]

Elysium was the world first group for A4S iirc. They ran with a BRD not a Machinist. You might be thinking of Lucrezia who used a MCH to get world second.

BRD and MCH are both viable and have similar dps output assuming similar proficiency.

Woops, you are right. Thank you for the correction.

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MCH and BRD DPS for the most part are pretty balanced, maybe a small tweak at most in terms of damage potency. The bigger issue that should be addressed is balance in their support role. Right now one is desired over the other depending on the group set up. Its extremely hard to properly balance at this point. Both in the support department have advantage/disadvantages, but it feels like SE set it up for one to be desired over another given the situation intentionally. I am not sure if that was the right way to go.

[RiceisNice]

....

It'd be fine if it didn't fall into the trap of the meta (since both classes technically share gear, a single player can interchangeably play the two if desired, or pick one over the other with preference over playstyle). As it stands, BRD is just objectively better when it comes to cutting edge because of the accuracy debuff for the healers (until they introduce 3.2 gear with accuracy materia anyway) and foe being better than hypercharge when regen isn't needed at all in a typical composition (speaking outside of progression anyway).

[Velhart]

It'd be fine if it didn't fall into the trap of the meta (since both classes technically share gear, a single player can interchangeably play the two if desired, or pick one over the other with preference over playstyle). As it stands, BRD is just objectively better when it comes to cutting edge because of the accuracy debuff for the healers (until they introduce 3.2 gear with accuracy materia anyway) and foe being better than hypercharge when regen isn't needed at all in a typical composition (speaking outside of progression anyway).

Its funny, Foe's Requiem should work more like Hypercharge, and Hypercharge should work more like Foe's Requiem. Put them both on oGCD with a timer without draining MP and increase both Mag/Phy attack by a certain percentage.

Sounds good on paper, but it would be hard to change a lot of the abilities at this point.

[RiceisNice]

Its funny, Foe's Requiem should work more like Hypercharge, and Hypercharge should work more like Foe's Requiem. Put them both on oGCD with a timer without draining MP and increase both Mag/Phy attack by a certain percentage.

Sounds good on paper, but it would be hard to change a lot of the abilities at this point.

I'm all for homogenizing their support (considering they are competiting for the same role of "support dps") as long as their gameplay isn't homogenized ...unfortunately the opposite is in effect.

[Velhart]

I'm all for homogenizing their support (considering they are competiting for the same role of "support dps") as long as their gameplay isn't homogenized ...unfortunately the opposite is in effect.

Its mostly because of WM/GB. If you take those out of the equation, while still similar, feel different enough to be called their own. Just my take on it.

What I want mostly out of MCH is a better form of sustained damage and better balance of support with BRD. Will we ever get that? I wouldn't put my money on it.

[RiceisNice]

Its mostly because of WM/GB. If you take those out of the equation, while still similar, feel different enough to be called their own. Just my take on it.

What I want mostly out of MCH is a better form of sustained damage and better balance of support with BRD. Will we ever get that? I wouldn't put my money on it.

Even outside of GB/WM, MCH just doesn't do quite enough on it's own to be "that" different from 2.0 bard. They maintain a buff (hotshot/SS), maintain one less DoT, and play re-actively to procs on their weaponskills (whereas MCH does this more frequently). There's very little interaction with the turret since it's mostly place-and-forget, and while their burst is different, it's only one side aspect of their core gameplay.

As a new job introduced from the expansion (which means they can put so much more thought and detail behind it, versus a 3.x patch or hotfix), it's incredibly disappointing to see it from that regard, and it's such a wasted opportunity for an entire new job where their initial previews were utilizing multiple attachments and ammunition to boost skills or being required for skills. It would have been nice ot have an AoE barrel that gave your weaponskills an AoE effect (at the cost of more TP and less damage) while getting rid of spread/grenado (which are functionally the same as QN/WV), and a barrel that increases dps at the cost of TP efficiency (for wildfire or burst/push phases). You can see that definitely being the case for Dork knight and AST (and in the case of the latter, it was relatively weak but that's what you can tune with hotfixes)

[Velhart]

snip

I think developers might be too scared to make the two jobs feel completely different. Its weird because Black Mage and Summoner feel completely different but both casting DPS's that excel in AoE. I am not sure why the same mind set could of been applied here in retrospect.

I love how MCH plays and my favorite job the game has made so far, but its still fair to point out they didn't really go out of their way to make it very different from BRD.

[Alahra]

-snip-

In a sense, I still think GB/WM is part of the problem. DRK is rather similar to PLD up until 50, at which point their skill kits start to diverge further, and they end up feeling different at 60. BRD and MCH don't differentiate from 50-60 that much because of WM/GB.

GB and WM are the same ability essentially.
Empyreal Arrow and Gauss Round have slightly different functionality but serve the same purpose of making up for the loss of auto attacks on single target.
Richochet/Sidewinder are essentially both just new oGCD attacks.

That's 3 of 5 new abilities that are devoted to essentially the same exact thing that don't even really function all that different from one another. And 3-4 abilities can do a lot to make shared role jobs feel different from one another. Most of what DRK gets after 50 is pretty unique to them, at least among the tanks, which goes a long way toward differentiating it from PLD and WAR.