I mean, as someone who started in ARR the idea of Machinist being a Black Mage / Samurai counterpart is just bizarre.

If you ask me they should be throwing out turrets to pulse buffs / debuffs, throwing wrenches or whatever was going on with Rend Mind, damage reduction skills like role skill Palisade (i remember you, Palisade!). Basically, something closer to PvP Machinist than what we have now. Frankly I just don’t really get the point in having another ‘big burst no(low) support high numbers’ DPS when there’s already literally an entire category of DPS whose main design philosophy is ‘big burst no(low) support high numbers’ (it’s melee). Not you, Ninja.

Plus doesn’t making it a pure selfish dps make it literally unbalanceable?

The phys ranged role is supposed to provide ‘support’ and ‘sustained damage’ (lol wut), but if there’s one that has absolutely no support, that entire role identity goes down the drain and ultimately devolves into a Heavensward BRD vs MCH buff battle where any single adjustment on one job basically cancels out the other. I.E MCH is pure personal dps BRD is support. Any buff to MCH is going to be a buff to BRD too, so either it’ll need super high personal dps which would cause problems for other roles (why take a melee or a caster when you can take a lolranged), or Bard (or Dancer) would pull ahead and Machinist would be useless. Likewise if Machinist’s personal dps is higher than the rDPS Bard/Dancer output, it just invalidates their existence. I mean, I highly doubt people would give their melee/BLM spot to a MCH just so they could also take a Bard or Dancer (which is impossible anyway because I think it’d still break lb generation?)