Quote Originally Posted by Connor View Post
In Bard’s defense besides constant (raid) buffs Bard actually gets neither mitigation nor healing lol, if you remove its raid buffs it’s actually an awful support compared to the rest. Lolheal boost and lolesuna really aren’t the most valuable utility tools sadly…and that’s it outside role skills lol.

Makes you wonder what SE even deems as a ‘support job’ these days. They say phys ranged is the ‘support’ dps role yet Machinist exists. They say nothing about casters being the actual support classes then there’s Summoner and Red Mage. Like, do the devs genuinely think Machinist/Dancer/Bard can rival the on-demand healing/raise, (near) constant mobility, decent raid buffs etc that Summoner and Red Mage have? Hell you could throw Pictomancer in there too. Tempera Grassa is infinitely bette than Nature’s Minne lol.

Even if they did decide to go all-in on Machinist as a support, what’s even the point when all it can get is fairly useless utility and maybe some raid buffs almost every job in the game gets. If they go all-in with it as a pure selfish dps, how can it ever reach that goal when it’s balanced in the ‘supporters’ role? It’s like poor Machinists can’t win either way lol (honestly Bards too, Dancer at least has some healing and an awful HP shield lol)
To Minne's defense, it's a pretty potent shield boost. Heal boost as well if your party is pumping heals, which I found appreciable in P8S p2 for Unnatural Selection, but I find it really interesting when combined with big shield application. Even when it was still in its underwhelming solo target form for DSR release, we used it to spreadlo during Thordan DRK jumps.

Dismantle may be more versatile and easy to use, but it's also drowning in a sea of similar mitigators on the boss, battling with reprisal, addle and feint at the very least. The diminishing returns it gets now that everyone and their moms have mitigation to use tend to make rphys shine less indirectly which is a shame. Still a good skill though don't get me wrong, but hardly necessary, much like Minne.

The problem when compared to newer tools like Tempera Grassa, is that Minne and Dismantle are tools that date back from Stormblood and Heavensward respectively, and back then, they were good comparatively, much like TBN was the best tank short defensive ever in SB, but now pales a little in comparison to the new kids in the block like Bloodwhetting. It's the same for a lot of rphys unique support tools unfortunately. Even Warden had more uses back then and people were already considering it a meme.