Machinist class is dead

[Tobias_Azuryon]

I believe the closest you can get to "objective" balancing is based on three factors.

1. Ease of Use - how easy it is to use the class, how punishing failures to execute rotation are, how much "effort" is required to hit maximum dps.
2. Utility - what does it bring the rest of the party? How much rdps/mitigation/heal does it bring?
3. Mobility - How much can they ignore mechanics and/or move with a fight and how punished are they for doing so. Essentially how difficult is it for them to "Adjust" to mechanics.

I believe the key factor in MCH's balance is that in 3, mobility, they can pretty much ignore any/all mechanics for ease of movement and are not punished at all for placement. As someone who loves MCH dearly it's the "Easiest" class in the game imo to play. I don't have to worry about up time, I don't have to worry about movement, I don't have to worry about buffs, and aside from a bit of burst damage I can pretty much stay in the top 1-3 in most content just loosely following the opener.

The issue here is how do they balance this ease of use to make it not punish other players, and it's an issue I believe they've had a while (see my previous main, NIN).

If you buff MCH to be able to do like high end melee/SAM/BLM numbers of damage you create a class that can easily hit like a truck with no punishment and literally no tactical thinking involved. No optimization of uptime and aside from maybe server ping no real drawbacks.

If you give them more utility it starts to copy BRD and DNC (See BRD in SHB having this same problem because DNC took most its utility/role in the group).

How fair would it be to have them do as much damage as classes that have to move around AOEs, utilize uptime, plan out their rotations/burst, etc. I've seen on the forums before that people believe mobility shouldn't affect dps balancing but I argue that it is probably the biggest reason why MCH is stuck in the weird limbo it's in currently. Perhaps the cast time while moving introduced in PVP could introduce a new skill/capstone next expac that allows for movement (slowed) but dps to provide more "skill ceiling" to the class or they could give it another personal dps buff it has to set up.

As someone who mains NIN and watched RPR come in and do way more damage, with my utility on a single button press, and just top dps for a while, I feel the pain of watching a class you like kinda become negligible, but I also believe the dps checks in this game aren't bad enough to warrant "needing" a specific comp if you don't eat aoes.

[Remarus]

-snip-

No one is asking for MCH to do RPR or SAM DPS, we're asking to be the top DPS out of our specific role, as we're the selfish DPS class for the Phys Ranged role.

We shouldn't be putting up numbers like SAM/RPR/BLM but we *should* have rDPS equal to or greater than BRD/DNC rDPS when all is said and done. At the moment, if you're min-maxing your group comp, you're hurting your group by not filling your Phys Ranged with BRD or DNC to bring a higher rDPS.

[TabrisOmbrelame]

No one is asking for MCH to do RPR or SAM DPS, we're asking to be the top DPS out of our specific role, as we're the selfish DPS class for the Phys Ranged role.

We shouldn't be putting up numbers like SAM/RPR/BLM but we *should* have rDPS equal to or greater than BRD/DNC rDPS when all is said and done. At the moment, if you're min-maxing your group comp, you're hurting your group by not filling your Phys Ranged with BRD or DNC to bring a higher rDPS.

I disagree with that.

A bard/dancer can have a lower rDPS than a MCH simply because the group isn't packing a punch. They simply have enormous RDPS because Bard buff 100% of the time through the fight for the whole group, while Dancer buff him and his partner. Those class always buff at least someone else and Depend on them to make their rDPS up. Therefore, if a dancer take a bard as a Partner, he will have significantly lower rDPS against a combinaison with a Ninja or Monk for exemple. BUT the DPS itself from a Bard and Dancer are lower than that of MCH, those two classes don't have a DH CRIT on a 580 Potency attack that can be unleashed every 55 sec. While Dancer got a 600 Potency DH Crit every 120 sec which can't even be compared, the Bard can only unleash a 600 Potency with nothing guarenteed after building his gauge at 80+. Their is other thing to compare that, like the robot of the Machinist who makes a total of 2780 Potency if you launch it at 100% and match perfectly into the burst phase (The robot attack for like 18-20 sec, half of this is done by the two last attack)

Even if I agree that MCH is still lacking in term of DPS, I can understand why it will never go far beyond Bard and Dancer too, It's not a hard job to play with, unlike the Monk who's really hard to master.


Therefore, Playing Bard/Dancer is a gamble when you play with people you don't know. If they are not doing good, you will not either. That problem isn't met with MCH.