Machinist class is dead

[Kitfox]

MCH is in the grave. The damage is too low, the ping problems are too bad, and there's no utility. The class is simply dead weight compared to other ranged classes.

[gamerseb]

MCH is in the grave. The damage is too low, the ping problems are too bad, and there's no utility. The class is simply dead weight compared to other ranged classes.

Agreed.

Are you keeping the class or changing to a different one?

[Kitfox]

Agreed.

Are you keeping the class or changing to a different one?

I just might have to buy a bow with my books even though I dislike BRD. I don't even have DNC leveled. Even double caster is probably better than including a MCH.

[Grimoire-M]

I just might have to buy a bow with my books even though I dislike BRD. I don't even have DNC leveled. Even double caster is probably better than including a MCH.

Can confirm, been doing Double Caster Double Melee without a hitch the entire tier. I'm filling the 'ranged' slot because NIN's uptime capabilities let me compensate for us having a BLM/RDM pair. As much as I may want to swap off of it as protest to their changes, it'll hurt the group overall if I do.

[gamerseb]

I wish we could hold a mass funeral for the MCH job.

Sadly, I don't think many would attend. Since no one is playing it anymore, no one else seems to care.

[gamerseb]

It does out dps the other two physical ranged jobs, by a lot actually. If you're referring to RDPS and not DPS then yes it falls behind there. But if you think MCH should do more personal dmg than Bard and Dancer and also do more RDPS than Bard and Dancer, what exactly would be the point of Bard and Dancer even existing. MCH has issues for sure, the entire Phys Ranged role has issues. Simply making it outperform Bard and Dancer in everything isn't a solution.

There's a big issue with people on this forum demanding changes looking at FFLOGS (sorted by RDPS) and assuming thats personal DPS. MCH literally does around 15% more dmg than both Dancer and Bard in straight up DPS comparison.

People have discussed the DPS and rDPS situation a lot before. Here's my take without those terms:

Imagine a party composed of 7 classes + MCH. Now imagine the same party, but instead of a MCH, pick any other job, including BRD and DNC.

The result is that the clear time is always better in any of those other parties. For progs, close wipes become clears. And I've had a TON of those. For logs, it means better times. Whether it's rDPS or aDPS, simply having a different class is better 99% of times. You don't even need to consider how to measure and show the damage for this logic.

[Cyd3l]

So if MCH is better than Bard and Dancer, please explain why you'd ever want those classes then? Simply changing which phys Ranged DPS is the lowest won't fix the problem that someone has to be at the bottom. So lets put the classes that already take tons of personal DPS penalties, require near-perfect execution of teamates performance during buff windows and make them lowest in group situations too? How does that make sense? Not to mention you're only comparing clear data. During actual progression DNC and BRD perform much worse because people aren't optimizing, people are dying, MCH can actually outperform BRD and DNC here, its only after the prog when everyone is executing well that it starts to shift to the buff classes pulling ahead. And what's wrong with that?

[HyoMinPark]

So if MCH is better than Bard and Dancer, please explain why you'd ever want those classes then?

Raid buffs. The same reason why buff comps take NIN and DRG over SAM, or AST and SCH over SGE and WHM.

If MCH does less than Bard and Dancer, please explain why you’d ever want to bring it to a party. What is it offering? Even if it does the same damage as BRD/DNC give, what is it offering the party?

Simply changing which phys Ranged DPS is the lowest won't fix the problem that someone has to be at the bottom. So lets put the classes that already take tons of personal DPS penalties, require near-perfect execution of teamates performance during buff windows and make them lowest in group situations too? How does that make sense?

Because you don’t balance around that. You balance jobs around other jobs within their role performing at the same level. You wouldn’t balance MCH against a BRD or DNC that is in a group of grey-level parsers. That is an unfair comparison. About as unfair as balancing a grey-level DNC player with an orange-tier MCH.

Not to mention you're only comparing clear data. During actual progression DNC and BRD perform much worse because people aren't optimizing, people are dying, MCH can actually outperform BRD and DNC here, its only after the prog when everyone is executing well that it starts to shift to the buff classes pulling ahead. And what's wrong with that?

You don’t balance around progression either. WHM used to be the best progression healer, but it has never been in the healer meta. That has always been AST/SCH. AST, WHM’s direct competitor, has always brought more than WHM when it comes to a party. WHM at least had personal damage and recovery going for it in the past, so it wasn’t entirely griefing to bring them. But right now, if you bring a MCH over a BRD or DNC to your group of the same skill, you are actively hurting them.

EDIT because daily post limit—haven’t hit that in a while.

Is this your opinion, or did SE literally say this somewhere? I find it unlikely the company feels gameplay should only be balanced for the top 5% of players in content less than 10% of the player base even participates in and only for clears with no consideration taken on what it takes to get there? And again i am not denying that MCH is in a bad spot and does need buffs. Making DNC or BRD take their spot isn't the solution tho.

Okay first of all: most content in this game doesn’t require any thought to it whatsoever. You don’t need to parse 99th percentile to clear dungeons; you can literally clear them auto-attacking with an AFK healer and a tank that only does their 1-2-3. Hence why most balance discussions center around the high end and how each job performs there and what they bring to the table.

But the premise of this thread and MCH’s problems comes from a high-end level. You do need to balance jobs around the high end because that’s when what they do and what they bring to a party actually matters. rDPS and aDPS does not matter outside of the high-end. Raid buffs do not matter outside of the high end. You can complete dungeons with barely a pulse, hence why you generally shouldn’t consider balancing around them. I usually pick 95th percentile because it shows high level play without getting into min-maxed territory or crit-fishing territory. Lower percentiles generally have rotational issues that affect performance, which therefore affects balancing. It’s necessary to eliminate these to get an understanding of true job performance at a high level.

You certainly do not balance around the low end. That is what causes balancing issues and job design issues. If you are implying that that is how things should be done, I’m sorry but you are wrong. Balancing around the lowest common denominator is never the route to go. The developers do not have a good track record when it comes to job balance. Considering they outright admitted back in SB that they did just balance BRD and MCH around piercing resistance down, and then couldn’t fathom why both wanted DRGs in their party. Or why both did so much more damage than expected when a DRG was around.

It’s also a huge issue with healers. Since the developers said they replaced a healer with EX experience because they were “too good” to fit into their “bare minimum” dungeon tuning metric. And, as a result, healers are mind-numbing boring to play at any level that isn’t “drooling on keyboard” levels.

[Cyd3l]

Raid buffs. The same reason why buff comps take NIN and DRG over SAM, or AST and SCH over SGE and WHM.

If MCH does less than Bard and Dancer, please explain why you’d ever want to bring it to a party. What is it offering? Even if it does the same damage as BRD/DNC give, what is it offering the party?

You need to have *SOME* high personal DPS classes for DNC and BRD to actually gain benefit from. That's why you would want them. Having those classes like SAM, BLM, MCH are necessary for DNC and BRD to achieve higher RDPS, if you just had a full raid of support DPS their RDPS would be much lower. DNC and BRD can't even hit their medicore RDPS without those high personal DPS classes to buff in the first place. Support classes don't stack well and they are effected by the entire comp of the raid. High Personal DPS classes do stack and literally don't rely on any other class to achieve that. A Dancer dance partnering a MCH is going to do a lot more RDPS than a Dancer dance partnering another Dancer or Bard. Support classes *need* those high personal DPS classes to do well. I want to stress I am not saying MCH doesn't need buffs, it does but its not so simple as just making it out perform DNC and BRD in everything. In regards to what its offering the party, DNC and BRD just offer DPS buffs, MCH has the same defensive CD the whole role has. Personal DPS > DPS from Buffs. DPS from Buffs require coordination, require multiple people to execute properly, there are more variables. Your personal DPS is up to you and only you, this makes it more desirable than DPS from buffs, because there is less that can go wrong.

Because you don’t balance around that. You balance jobs around other jobs within their role performing at the same level. You wouldn’t balance MCH against a BRD or DNC that is in a group of grey-level parsers. That is an unfair comparison. About as unfair as balancing a grey-level DNC player with an orange-tier MCH.



You don’t balance around progression either. WHM used to be the best progression healer, but it has never been in the healer meta. That has always been AST/SCH. AST, WHM’s direct competitor, has always brought more than WHM when it comes to a party. WHM at least had personal damage and recovery going for it in the past, so it wasn’t entirely griefing to bring them. But right now, if you bring a MCH over a BRD or DNC to your group of the same skill, you are actively hurting them.

Is this your opinion, or did SE literally say this somewhere? I find it unlikely the company feels gameplay should only be balanced for the top 5% of players in content less than 10% of the player base even participates in and only for clears with no consideration taken on what it takes to get there? And again i am not denying that MCH is in a bad spot and does need buffs. Making DNC or BRD take their spot isn't the solution tho.

[YukiB]

You need to have *SOME* high personal DPS classes for DNC and BRD to actually gain benefit from. That's why you would want them. Having those classes like SAM, BLM, MCH are necessary for DNC and BRD to achieve higher RDPS, if you just had a full raid of support DPS their RDPS would be much lower. DNC and BRD can't even hit their medicore RDPS without those high personal DPS classes to buff in the first place. Support classes don't stack well and they are effected by the entire comp of the raid. High Personal DPS classes do stack and literally don't rely on any other class to achieve that. A Dancer dance partnering a MCH is going to do a lot more RDPS than a Dancer dance partnering another Dancer or Bard. Support classes *need* those high personal DPS classes to do well. I want to stress I am not saying MCH doesn't need buffs, it does but its not so simple as just making it out perform DNC and BRD in everything. In regards to what its offering the party, DNC and BRD just offer DPS buffs, MCH has the same defensive CD the whole role has. Personal DPS > DPS from Buffs. DPS from Buffs require coordination, require multiple people to execute properly, there are more variables. Your personal DPS is up to you and only you, this makes it more desirable than DPS from buffs, because there is less that can go wrong.

Comparing MCH to SAM or BLM is asinine. It may be a "selfish" DPS but it doesn't do anywhere near as much damage as those two. In fact, its own personal DPS is lower than EVERY melee DPS, even the ones that ALSO bring a raid buff.

No meta comp is going to bring two physical ranged DPS. That's how poorly they're balanced. If you're picking a DNC or BRD, there is no room in the group for MCH. Every melee DPS brings more personal damage, either a LOT more like SAM, or a little more and an additional raid buff MCH doesn't have. Even RDM and SMN are neck and neck with it, while also bringing their own raid buffs and support.

And even if you do bring two physical ranged for the memes, a MCH will still contribute less to their DNC or BRD friend's rDPS than every other NON-selfish DPS in the game.