The State of Machinist in DT - Let's talk about it (again).

[Carighan]

If they only buffed the underdogs in pure damage, then likewise NIN, DRG, and MNK would have been buffed to keep up with SAM/VPR, invalidating them. That hasn't been the case though. Nor has it ever been the case for any whole expansion's length.

It'd also be ridiculous as a concept.

But in fact the way Square does focus on buffing>nerfing is already ridiculous, as it ruins a lot of PvE balance and makes things too easy, leading to half-baked jumps in difficulty in subsequent additions as numbers on bosses need to be tweaked, leading to a very weird damage profile in the second and particularly third tier of an expansion. I wish Square would more rigorously go "Take the median. Are you above, you get a nerf, are you below, you get a buff. Checking again next month.", no exceptions. There is no "I'm above the median but that's where I ought to be", no you get a nerf. Everyone meets in the middle or not at all.

[brinn12]

MCH isn't competing with melees unless the gap widens so greatly as to be worth both the loss in raidwide constant primary stat benefit and LB generation. It's competing against other Physical Ranged DPS.



If they only buffed the underdogs in pure damage, then likewise NIN, DRG, and MNK would have been buffed to keep up with SAM/VPR, invalidating them. That hasn't been the case though. Nor has it ever been the case for any whole expansion's length.


Yes, there is. It's at most about 5% short of being balanced against the best in competition in ST, with that 5% needing to include substantial AoE buffs to make it balanced in multi-target fights. None of that has to do with lacking raid buffs, though; it's a simple tuning issue. We got hit with random AoE nerfs that frankly should have been aimed at Dancer, if anyone, and haven't gotten the basic minor potency buffs we need elsewhere.

You're missing my points here. This isn't about a simple 3% or 5% buff that fixes everything (this would take more than half an expansion to happen btw, since the biggest buff for MCH so far in DT was 2.5%) — it's about how Square Enix consistently breaks the game's balance through each expansion release.

While indirect buffs affect melees like NIN and DRG, those jobs contribute around 10% more damage than DNC or BRD, so a 5% buff has a comparatively bigger effect on the Physical Ranged, representing more of their damage. And when you combine buffs like Devilment, Standard and Technical Finish, the support contribution from ranged ends up exceeding a 10% buff.

This situation makes it nearly impossible for Machinist to keep up. By the time SE manage to fix the issue, the expansion is nearly over — and the next one breaks the meta again. I agree that a fix is mathematically possible, by just increasing some of the meaningless buffs MCH gets. But after 5 years of failed attempts, it's hard to have faith that the devs will actually commit to this. They are way too hesitant and see the job as a pure DPS which simply cannot perform well.

[Shurrikhan]

It'd also be ridiculous as a concept.

But in fact the way Square does focus on buffing>nerfing is already ridiculous, as it ruins a lot of PvE balance and makes things too easy, leading to half-baked jumps in difficulty in subsequent additions as numbers on bosses need to be tweaked, leading to a very weird damage profile in the second and particularly third tier of an expansion. I wish Square would more rigorously go "Take the median. Are you above, you get a nerf, are you below, you get a buff. Checking again next month.", no exceptions. There is no "I'm above the median but that's where I ought to be", no you get a nerf. Everyone meets in the middle or not at all.

Oh I agree that we shouldn't just power-creep all jobs as an answer to entirely separate balance issues. Absolutely. I also agree that we, apart from recent (and playflow-destructive) PIC nerfs, do that -- regularly. But that wasn't my point.

My refutation was of Brinn's claim that only those with lower personal damage ever get buffs. That's not been the case. It's never been the case for a whole expansion's length / more than a few major patches at a time.

You're missing my points here. This isn't about a simple 3% or 5% buff that fixes everything (this would take more than half an expansion to happen btw, since the biggest buff for MCH so far in DT was 2.5%) — it's about how Square Enix consistently breaks the game's balance through each expansion release.You're missing my points here. This isn't about a simple 3% or 5% buff that fixes everything (this would take more than half an expansion to happen btw, since the biggest buff for MCH so far in DT was 2.5%) — it's about how Square Enix consistently breaks the game's balance through each expansion release.

You don't have a point. It is exactly that, because nothing about rough early-expansion tuning disproportionately affects MCH relative to the jobs it competes against. It's just tuning work yet to be done.

While indirect buffs affect melees like NIN and DRG, those jobs contribute around 10% more damage than DNC or BRD, so a 5% buff has a comparatively bigger effect on the Physical Ranged, representing more of their damage.

No. 5% of MCH damage is worth no more or less to MCH than 5% of NIN damage is worth to NIN. And if you're talking flat numbers, then 5% of the smaller-number role's numbers would be smaller, not "comparatively bigger".

And when you combine buffs like Devilment, Standard and Technical Finish, the support contribution from ranged ends up exceeding a 10% buff.

Which literally can be accounted for, and has been elsewhere.

Again:
The game does purposely not balance only around pure damage; it balances around typical total contribution. Any time that fails and cannot be explained by some particular antisynergy between the job and the fight is essentially a matter of rough/unfinished/bad balance.

That total damage contribution includes all three among (1) personal base/unbuffed damage, (2) bonus damage made possible from buffs given to others, and (3) the bonus damage actually done through exploitation of those buffs from others.
:: Yes, that third one is also important. Without it, the second doesn't happen either.

Let's take Dancing Green Savage and the 95th percentile for example, comparing MCH, DNC, and BRD.

Unbuffed Personal DPS: 30464 | 25093 | 24552
Buffs Used Via Others (raw DPS given to others): 0 | 6096 | 7151
Others' Buffs Exploited (raid DPS given to others): 1348 | 1589 | 1791
Total Contribution: 31812 | 33678 | 33494

While that fight is slightly complicated by both short stuns and brief global buffs, that's still a very decent indicator that a simple 5% buff would bring MCH up to almost perfect parity against BRD. Note also that it's not the big raid buff spec that's leading, though nerfs to SAM/VPR/BLM could indirectly bring DNC down to BRD's level.

Now, if you wanted MCH to have a ratio of aDPS to nDPS closer to that of BRD and DNC, you'd have to put more of that buff into its burst instead of applying it equally across the board, since (due to MCH's potency being more spread out) MCH has been averaging only about 4.4% bonus damage from buffs while BRD can manage up to 7.3%.

Likewise, if you wanted MCH to have a nearer ratio of damage between multi-target and single-target to DNC and BRD (say, so it doesn't suck in add Savage fights), you'd have to put a disproportionately larger portion of its 5% ST damage buff into skills that also have AoE and/or additionally buff the discrete AoE components (Scattergun, Auto-crossbow, Bioblaster, and the % damage modifiers on FMF, Chainsaw, Excavator, Checkmate, Double-Check). Obviously, allowing greater banking of that AoE capacity could also go a decent way without even touching the potencies, though how far that goes increases with the buffs to AoE capacity.

__________

Let's be clear here: We've often enough had pure-DPS provide the most total contribution -- not just most damage, but total damage contribution (i.e., enough increase personal and buff-exploiting bonus damage to make the clear faster than it would be with another of the best buffer having been taken even if there were not LB or stat penalty).

Hell, even if you merely average rDPS (wherein buff-exploitation get zero credit, that all instead being given to the buffer) and aDPS (where exploiters get credit for their use of raidbuffs but still not of any single-target buffs), the top 3 jobs... are all pure DPS. Fcs, the top rDPS... is Black Mage, who has no raid buffs. Their personal damage and potency-in-window is simply high enough that the sum of their personal damage and bonus damage created from others' buffs alone is greater than many buffers' personal damage, bonus damage created from others' buffs, and bonus damage made possible for others together.

MCH isn't proof that pure dps can only be underpowered. It's the ONLY pure DPS that isn't topping the meters or within 2% of the top within its respective role.

SAM does 37080 (34224 + 0 + 2856) total contribution opposite the likes of DRG's (same "OP" melee role)'s 36870 (31804 + 2674 + 2392) or NIN's 36939 (31445 + 2728 + 2766).

Even on that high-movement fight BLM does 35601 (33944 + 0 + 1657) vs. the notoriously long-term OP PIC's 36282 (30890 + 2774 + 2618) and RDM's 33450 or SMN's 32642. (Yes, BLM too "suffers" from low its damage profile being far less able to exploit raid buffs, but there is no issue simply raising personal DPS in turn unless we need to mainstream competitive and meaningful 4-man Savage content.)

:: Yes, that does that mean SAM whichever of those pure DPS would best get Dancer buffs is actually doing even more for the party than indicated by being the general top parse, because we haven't even added how much more rDPS the Dancer gets from buffing them over someone else (or that the party total DPS gets from having that extra synergy). Which means they are currently probably a bit overpowered. Every single one of them except for MCH.

Tl;dr:
It's not a problem caused by being a "Pure DPS" (as if the raid buffs we're talking about amounted to anything that wasn't likewise purely dps).
The other "Pure DPS" are generally doing fine. The top job in the game at present is a "Pure DPS".
The problem is tuning -- literally just tuning.

[Aco505]

To add to the above comment, the analysis provided used the 95 percentile, which isn't what most players will achieve numbers-wise and definitely not the average.

If buffers are more competitive on higher percentiles, it means that "selfish" jobs are likely better at most if not all percentiles because they don't depend on party comp, skill, or size to provide good damage, unlike a job such as BRD that requires the whole group to perform well. The main element that can hinder a non-buffer is undesirable kill times but that's the case for everyone.

This is especially obvious in content such as Criterion and CODCAR (besides NIN) where the "selfish" jobs easily dominate due to having no constraint to deal their damage.

Since the devs cannot balance the game around 90+ percentiles but more average numbers, balance-wise the buffer jobs should always perform better overall at higher percentiles due to the improved buff exploitation by both themselves and the party as a whole. Otherwise, the "selfish" jobs would be overpowered in virtually every piece of content in the game, which as stated above is mostly the case already with the exception of organized 8-people content.

In any case, this discussion is quite old (remember Abyssos?) and the issue is always the same: the extremely limited and slow amount of balance patches within an expansion's life cycle.

[Shurrikhan]

Aye. I just used 95th percentile to give the least selfish-job-benefiting perspective not overly subject to extreme variance between individual runs. If they do just fine at 95th percentile, they do fine in all.

[brinn12]

.

...You're still missing what I'm trying to say. Something being mathematically feasible doesn't mean SE will implement it. I agree the issue could be addressed through stronger buffs, but I don't believe it will happen.

While they can just increase the numbers — jobs like BLM and SAM prove that, as you've pointed out — we had enough failed attempts and the devs do not want to see a support, pure DPS doing enough personal damage to be competitive. Again, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying that "can" and "want" are rather different.

Also, on the 5% raid buff point, I was specifically referring to proportions. It means different things for different jobs depending on their personal vs. raid contribution. If NIN is doing 30k rDPS, 3k comes from buffs, so 90% is personal. But a DNC might do 27k rDPS with 24k personal, which is only ~89%. In reality, DNC buffs up to more than 7k, and its personal contribution is often under 80%. Going for cDPS slightly changes numbers for both jobs but the point still stands.

You're just arguing over nothing at this point. From my experience with other things in this game, when SE mishandles something for this long, meaningful changes only come when there's a full design overhaul. I don't see why MCH would be an exception. Suggesting buffs they've consistently avoided for almost half the game's lifespan feels like wishful thinking. As you said yourself, most pure DPS jobs don't struggle like MCH does — and there's a reason for that.

[Shurrikhan]

...You're still missing what I'm trying to say. Something being mathematically feasible doesn't mean SE will implement it. I agree the issue could be addressed through stronger buffs, but I don't believe it will happen.

While they can just increase the numbers — jobs like BLM and SAM prove that, as you've pointed out — we had enough failed attempts and the devs do not want to see a support, pure DPS doing enough personal damage to be competitive. Again, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying that "can" and "want" are rather different.

The difference between BLM/SAM and MCH, though, has nothing to do with anything inherent to pure DPS and everything simply to do with MCH being more dispensable. It's not Yoshida's job and its in a less popular role that already typically relies on the basic arbitrary composition requirements to be taken at all.

No part of that changes in adding a raidbuff. And if MCH is to remain too attention starved even to get simple potency buffs (i.e., what even healers can somehow afford), how the hell would it see time of day enough to get a raidbuff?

Also, on the 5% raid buff point, I was specifically referring to proportions. It means different things for different jobs depending on their personal vs. raid contribution. If NIN is doing 30k rDPS, 3k comes from buffs, so 90% is personal.

And again, there is no directly relevant increase except in terms of total contribution, which every decent state of balance has correlated tightly with.

From my experience with other things in this game, when SE mishandles something for this long, meaningful changes only come when there's a full design overhaul. I don't see why MCH would be an exception.

Except MCH has slipped into the highest total contribution among Physical Ranged a few different times now even since becoming purely physical, and Bard and MCH likewise saw periods of 2 to 3 major patches where one or the other was clearly superior even when they had identical portions of raid dps.

You're not going to fix overly slow or rough tuning by giving MCH a raidbuff. At best, it changes nothing for how often or well Physical Ranged get balanced, as we saw across Heavensward and Stormblood. More likely, it worsens issues in the short-term, as you've just added another and novel complicating factor, as per whenever one was added (as in Stormblood and Shadowbringers).

Tl;dr: The devs likely have even less "want" to spend the larger amount of time required to give MCH a raidbuff than to simply apply the necessary potency increases.

[brinn12]

The difference between BLM/SAM and MCH, though, has nothing to do with anything inherent to pure DPS and everything simply to do with MCH being more dispensable. It's not Yoshida's job and its in a less popular role that already typically relies on the basic arbitrary composition requirements to be taken at all.

No part of that changes in adding a raidbuff. And if MCH is to remain too attention starved even to get simple potency buffs (i.e., what even healers can somehow afford), how the hell would it see time of day enough to get a raidbuff?


And again, there is no directly relevant increase except in terms of total contribution, which every decent state of balance has correlated tightly with.


Except MCH has slipped into the highest total contribution among Physical Ranged a few different times now even since becoming purely physical, and Bard and MCH likewise saw periods of 2 to 3 major patches where one or the other was clearly superior even when they had identical portions of raid dps.

You're not going to fix overly slow or rough tuning by giving MCH a raidbuff. At best, it changes nothing for how often or well Physical Ranged get balanced, as we saw across Heavensward and Stormblood. More likely, it worsens issues in the short-term, as you've just added another and novel complicating factor, as per whenever one was added (as in Stormblood and Shadowbringers).

Tl;dr: The devs likely have even less "want" to spend the larger amount of time required to give MCH a raidbuff than to simply apply the necessary potency increases.

They've been increasing the average patch cycle every expansion. I am sure they had enough time to give it a raid buff, considering their plan to revamp every job in just 1 patch (8.0), while also releasing other 2.

Whenever this job eventually "slips", SE ends the fun. MCH was an inferior pick for TEA, FRU and DSR, and decent (not superior, just evened out) in TOP. It was bad for the first 2 tiers in Endwalker and Dawntrail, eventually being banned from PF, where it should be shining the most. Good for 1 tier in Shadowbringers. A 3% or a 5% buff like you suggest takes too long to happen with SE's hesitation. Their buffs are always small, too spread out and lose efficiency considering how much DNC and BRD get buffed indirectly.

Threads like this one exist for a reason, people are seeing the same cycle repeating itself time and time again, and it's not going to be broken by asking SE for the same thing they've been doing for 5 years. If you want to believe that, go ahead. I know my point stands when I see threads like this being remade as if they were scripted, with the same complaints and requests.

[Shurrikhan]

A 3% or a 5% buff like you suggest takes too long to happen with SE's hesitation. Their buffs are always small, too spread out and lose efficiency considering how much DNC and BRD get buffed indirectly.

If you buffed every non-Physical Ranged job by a massive 5%, that'd still have increased the performance of BRD (the most dependent on said increases for its total throughput) by barely 0.27% in ST fights. Even just 5 potency more on Burst Shot would do contribute twice that much. The indirect buffs are virtually a non-factor.

people are seeing the same cycle repeating itself time and time again, and it's not going to be broken by asking SE for the same thing they've been doing for 5 years.

You mean the same thing RDM, SMN, BLM, and DRG regularly have to ask for?

I know my point stands when I see threads like this being remade as if they were scripted, with the same complaints and requests.

Except, again, you're saying that the solution to the apparent issue that the devs won't spend time on MCH is to champion an approach that would require even more time and throw yet another wrench into MCH's works. That makes no damn sense.

If you want MCH to have a raid buff for thematic reasons, just say as much, but saying they could/should just go the more expensive route because they lack the desire to do even the cheaper route is incongruous.

Meanwhile, here's a 4.5% damage buff to bring it up to an entirely sufficient level of competitiveness in ST with improved buff-exploitation worth another ~0.2% total contribution in all of two lines:

• Checkmate potency increased from 170 to 200.
• Double Check potency increased from 170 to 200.
• Drill potency increased from 600 to 680 potency.
• Air Anchor potency increased from 600 to 680 potency.
• Chainsaw potency increased from 600 to 680 potency.
• Excavator potency increased from 600 to 680 potency.

Voila, 4.5% bonus, bringing it within less than a percent of Bard. As simply as that.

Whenever this job eventually "slips", SE ends the fun.

Probably because it, frankly, shouldn't be outperforming BRD or DNC in any optimized group. It's less reliant and easier for a group to optimize (around). MCH should generally be near DNC and BRD, but by high percentiles it really shouldn't ever overtake them.

[brinn12]

Ok, at this point I'm convinced you're not being serious. I've practically spelled it out for you: I agree that meaningful buffs could fix the job for a patch — the issue lies in the company hesitating to apply them. Trying to convince them that they should change the way they balance jobs, instead going for major and frequent buffs, is as effective as asking a door to open. I just won't waste any more of our precious time going in circles.