Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
Shouldn't that be the opposite? If, say, MCH, SMN, and RDM were to all have equal mobility and rDPS (MCH gets a new mobility-constraining way of increasing its damage), SMN and RDM (as jobs that bring support/utility atop their reliability/mobility and rDPS) would still be at an advantage over MCH.

To compare the relative advantages of just RDM and MCH briefly:
  • Mobility -> MCH (small difference, varied by encounter).
  • Ease of Optimization -> MCH (very small difference, varied by player).

  • Utility -> RDM (relatively large difference; RDM has some of the highest levels of utility*, while MCH has none).
  • Damage -> RDM (large enough difference that you almost always get 2 casters or melee instead of 2 physical ranged).

MCH is slightly underfunded either way, but if we were to add elements that constrain their mobility, which would likely also bring its skill ceiling of to (reduce ease of optimization down to) RDM's level, MCH would have more than enough budget to match both utility RDM's utility and damage, too, or faintly exceed its damage while offering less utility, etc.
Machinist could have two extra actions to buff up its utility:
- A physical counterpart of Magic Barrier
- Palisade back

I've seen people toying with a rez concept for MCH as a battery spender, but a rez would probably create more issues than before.