Question, why does Bard and Machinist share the same core mechanic?

[Pomelo]

I like Minuet, but that's probably because I live in some sort of deluded world where SE are slowly pushing Bard towards an entirely support agenda...more songs...more stackable songs please *sob*

Iron Jaws = SASSY <3

[Altena]

Rice, I won't write a long winded response because honestly I can't be bothered..

I can't agree with you, but that's totally fine. I also don't have extensive experience on playing MCH at end game.
I also can't agree that turret position is completely irrelevant, especially on the later fights (such as A7S & A8S). Both arenas are quite large, and both fights involve quite a bit of movement.
Our MCH actually requested not to handle the physical DPS jail in A7S due to having to resummon his turret. However like I said earlier, my knowledge on EG MCH is 2nd hand information.

Another comment from the MCH was that they hate BRD as it feels clunky and horrible to play compared to MCH.. To me, that opinion shares the idea that their overall playstyle is considerably different (as was my opinion without this input).

At least to a point - as like I stated earlier, my opinion is of that most jobs filling the same roles have similar backbones.

Also your comparison of PLD and DRK makes me both laugh and cry.. Especially considering you are arguing that BRD and MCH are too similar.. Sorry but I definitely can't agree with you on this. DRK and PLD are even more similar than BRD and MCH if you wish to argue that point. Dark Arts is barely even a mechanic. "Pop this buff to chew mana to make these 3-4 skills stronger, but generally you won't use these 3-4 skills without DA anyway"... I mean what do you even use DA on, aside from C&S, DM and SE? Could argue Power Slash is ok as well (hence the "3-4"), but that's honestly about it..

It's more of an annoyance than anything else. They might as well have tacked the MP cost onto the skills and done away with it, as it adds very little to the class in terms of gameplay..

[Jacost]

I wouldn't call Minuet or Gauss the core mechanic of those classes. Bards are focused around DoTs and oGCDs, and Machinists have Wildfire.

[Voltyblast]

In my previous post I mentioned how the two stances aren't really mechanics but, simply put, badly implemented gimmicks that renders them casters. So I thought that, what about making those two stances with a mechanic? I mean, an ACTUAL mechanic?

I had these simple ideas that could somehow work and would still force them to be a still, however without the need of having cast times:

Gauss Barrel: remove the casting time but increase the damage of the MCH by 5% for every X second that he/she is hitting a target - essentially making you a nuking beast but bad at add management. The buff is removed when switching target.

Wanderer's Minuet: remove the casting time but increase the damage of the BRD by 5% for every X second that he/she is standing still - rendering them the idea for add control but less for movement-based mechanics. The buff is removed when moving.

Of course these are just my take but think about it: with these 2 hypotethical stances they'd actually have proper mechanics implemented into their new buffs and without having the nuisance of casting their skills.
I'm 100% sure I won't be taken in consideration or someone will say this is OP (well duh, I'm not a programmer) or that they're fine as they are, but I do think that something like the ideas I've put could be both beneficial and interesting to have.

[RiceisNice]

- I'm on the boat that brd also plays clunky, but only because theyre sharing things similiar to mch with archer skills that it doesn't mix. It's more on that than it is being considerably different

- even in your dark arts example streamlining it like that, that's still more involved than ammo. Whether you consider it an annoyance or not (much like how some blms consider enochian an annoyance), that still speaks in spades to how it has an effect on drks gameplay. Ammo has much less influence on that with it ensuring a proc on something that has 50%, and very infrequently you'd hold off on using it because it's both a tp and dps loss otherwise.

-a8 isn't big enough to be out of range of its placed in the center, and while you have high mobility in a7s, you're still often confined to specific sides and areas for most of the fight. Not to mention that this is two (three if we count a2) fights out of the entire game to have turret placement matter as a job mechanic.