[Machinist] What is going on?

[Enjuden]

This is false. Machinist is outperforming Bard and Dancer in the vast, vast majority of scenarios.

It's just that the one place they aren't, is in high skill, well optimized 8-man groups. The kinds you seek if you want to week 1 clear Savage, especially *this* Savage, but that don't matter at all for the purposes of legitimately 99+% of players.

That's been Machinist's "problem" ever since late Stormblood. As a job that does not at all scale with group quality, it absolutely cannot be allowed to compete with Bard or Dancer at the highest levels of group play. That would be disastrous for ranged balance, as another pointed out, since there wouldn't be any scenarios where you'd want a Bard or Dancer (unless they were given a res, maybe).


SE has, plainly, long since decided that this is fine. Machinist mains are playing what is easily the most powerful ranged dps class - until you're in the kind of group that is so high-end, they demand all their members be able to flex within their role.

In other words, the players for whom MCH is weak, are by definition also the ones who are already prepared to job swap anyway. It's weird for a job to be perma-singled out to be in that state, but you can imagine SE being fine with it. It's not a wildly unreasonable stance.

Sounds like someone who swapped jobs just to clear the tier because they realized it wasn't good enough.

Oh wait. You did.

I could probably clear the fights I am in significantly easier if I was Bard or Dancer this tier. But I refuse to simp for my static, so they all get to suffer for it instead because Machinist isn't even meeting par. If you're going to state something so absurd, at least provide proof of it, which you can't do because the data already proves otherwise.

[Cetonis]

Sounds like someone who swapped jobs just to clear the tier because they realized it wasn't good enough.

Oh wait. You did.

I could probably clear the fights I am in significantly easier if I was Bard or Dancer this tier. But I refuse to simp for my static, so they all get to suffer for it instead because Machinist isn't even meeting par. If you're going to state something so absurd, at least provide proof of it, which you can't do because the data already proves otherwise.

What are you on? I'm a Bard main through and through. Machinist is the job I swap to for the first fight(s) of week 1, because it's much better for clearing those quickly. Early fight dps checks only matter when you have a heap of deaths, and MCH blows out the other ranged in those messy runs.

Also, frankly you *should* be playing MCH in your group. The rDPS gained by Bard and Dancer vs. their lower natural damage, looks like it'd be about a wash for your group. Because you have a pretty normal group. The very large majority of people tackling savage are going to be in teams around as good as yours, or worse, and can be quite a bit worse as we get down the road.


So yes, MCH is pretty solid damage-wise relative to the other ranged, maybe a percent behind at worst, for the typical savage group. Week 1-2 clear groups are only a thin slice of the overall populace. The job has room to be that 1% touch stronger, but it straight-up cannot be allowed to compete with the scaling ranged at the top end for obvious reasons.

Singling out MCH as the sole job that should get a buff, as opposed to the ranged+casters as a whole, is a dead end. It doesn't have much room to gain damage by its lonesome. SE is not going to add a party buff to MCH this expac, or probably ever. They should at least add some defensive utility, but once again adding entirely new skills is not a thing that happens in the middle of an expac.

The better case is to point out how silly the ranged tax is in general, when SE is making it next to impossible for melee to have downtime ever.

[Mithron]

So yes, MCH is pretty solid damage-wise relative to the other ranged, maybe a percent behind at worst, for the typical savage group.

Singling out MCH as the sole job that should get a buff, as opposed to the ranged+casters as a whole, is a dead end.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Seraphor]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Little cropping to make it perfectly clear:




Also, if MCH was balanced appropriately, for a selfish dps job that's supposedly easier to play than the other two in the ranged role, I would expect it to look something more like this:



As you can see, although the top scores aren't as high due to party optimisation for utility jobs giving them an edge, they're still in a comparable range, however the median and lower scores are higher, because it's supposedly easier to play and more consistent in it's own damage output.

At this point you can then turn around and say "the ranged role in general is too low" and buff them all equally.

[MichiKyou]

Singling out MCH as the sole job that should get a buff, as opposed to the ranged+casters as a whole, is a dead end. It doesn't have much room to gain damage by its lonesome. SE is not going to add a party buff to MCH this expac, or probably ever. They should at least add some defensive utility, but once again adding entirely new skills is not a thing that happens in the middle of an expac.
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No one here is disputing other jobs need a buff? This is just a thread focusing on machinist. I dont go into reaper threads and start trying to derail it about Machinist.

[Cetonis]

No one here is disputing other jobs need a buff? This is just a thread focusing on machinist. I dont go into reaper threads and start trying to derail it about Machinist.

Sure. I'm mixing in frustration with MCH derailing other convos in general between here and other places.

[Reimmi]

2 Solutions i can think of here
Give mch debuffs so it can give comparable RDPS to bard/dancer
Give mch cast times and give it the same selfish dps treatment as blackmage/samurai

Tbh i dont believe in the ranged dps tax anymore, but the devs sure do. so these are the only things i can see happening

[Seraphor]

It does if you look at adps. The only jobs that out-DPS machinists on personal damage are the melees and black mage.

It's buffs where it falls behind.

Adps is a pointless metric, a jobs dps buffs are a part of their damage contribution. Raid buffs might be skewed depending on the number of players in the partyn but there are always at least three other party members in any valid content, and frankly all significant content (even if it's not savage) is still 8 man content.

It would be one thing if a 'selfish' dps job could compete with the rdps of others in a 4 man but not an 8 man, but even that's not the case for MCH.

[Risvertasashi]

Adps is a pointless metric, a jobs dps buffs are a part of their damage contribution. Raid buffs might be skewed depending on the number of players in the partyn but there are always at least three other party members in any valid content, and frankly all significant content (even if it's not savage) is still 8 man content.

It would be one thing if a 'selfish' dps job could compete with the rdps of others in a 4 man but not an 8 man, but even that's not the case for MCH.

Hard disagree. rdps is important, but so is adps - especially when making the argument for "selfish" DPS types. rdps is exactly where selfish DPS should fall behind - if selfish DPS have the best adps and rdps, what's even the point of raid buffs? (And, yes, I do think melee that fall into the category of "best of both" are overtuned).

[TheDustyOne]

Isn't the point of rdps to account for the discrepancy between jobs with different adps? It doesn't matter if a job is selfish or not, if it has less rdps than another, then it's bringing less dps overall regardless of its adps.