What is wrong about making machinist good?

[aiqa]

I'd wait for the next tier before judging. Being ahead in Savage during odd patches doesn't mean much, especially since the job has nothing to do in downtime and relies heavily on fight design to function in odd-patch Ultimates. Machinist was ahead of Dancer in Savage during 7.1, but it still had a terrible time in FRU. After that, it arguably had its worst fight since the rework, which was M6S. The fact of the matter is that MCH was a bad pick for both tiers and the Ultimate. Being decent for just 1/3 of an expansion means the job is being neglected. This is Endwalker all over again.

Alright. But MCH is obviously the strongest rphys job right now. So why do we get a thread complaining about how specifically MCH needs to be buffed. How much stronger does MCH need to be than BRD and DNC before it's good enough?

[Reginald_Cain]

That would hold up if MCH was always lower at top or 95th percentile rDPS. But at least at the moment it is not. At half the current tier MCH top rDPS is shared best in the rphys role, and highest at 95th percentile in 3/4.

And even if we ignore current tier. It's not a clear argument for why MCH needs to perform better. The dependance on other players is an indirect job difficulty, which MCH doesn't have. And that added difficulty should be rewarded, not penalized.

I'm really tired of the other phys ranged holding machinist hostage. They need to abolish the current party composition system that forces 1 phys, 1 caster, 1-2 melee and reintroduce something like piercing down on dragoon.
to make comps with a supportive phys ranged like the bard and a selfish phys ranged like machinist viable again. The phys ranged as a role are in a terrible place with no cohesive identity. I'd rather machinist be balanced around samurai and black mage instead of bard and dancer. Make the 4th phys ranged selfish too so we have an even split. Reaper, black mage and samurai have plenty of movement tools and selfish phys ranged should not be knee capped to the point they can't compete with them. I don't want machinist to replace bard and dancer in every party, I want it to be strong and viable as a selfish dps who can use the bard songs and dancer partner as effectively as other selfish dps.

[aiqa]

I'm really tired of the other phys ranged holding machinist hostage. They need to abolish the current party composition system that forces 1 phys, 1 caster, 1-2 melee and reintroduce something like piercing down on dragoon.
to make comps with a supportive phys ranged like the bard and a selfish phys ranged like machinist viable again. The phys ranged as a role are in a terrible place with no cohesive identity. I'd rather machinist be balanced around samurai and black mage instead of bard and dancer. Make the 4th phys ranged selfish too so we have an even split. Reaper, black mage and samurai have plenty of movement tools and selfish phys ranged should not be knee capped to the point they can't compete with them. I don't want machinist to replace bard and dancer in every party, I want it to be strong and viable as a selfish dps who can use the bard songs and dancer partner as effectively as other selfish dps.

That is the wrong way to look at it. You're acting like there is some god given reason BRD/DNC need the performance they have now, and that MCH is only that weak because it happens to be in the same role as BRD/DNC.

How about this...
I am tired of MCH holding DNC/BRD hostage. DNC/BRD have a huge indirect difficulty over MCH by depending on their team for their rDPS. The only way you can be a top BRD/DNC is if your whole team is on point, but they can't be rewarded for that because of MCH holding them back. I propose BRD/DNC rDPS get buffed up to a top performing dps job. And they can make a 4th rphys job, at MCH levels, to codify a 2 tier system inside the rphys role.

See where that would leave MCH? You are asking for that, just for BRD/DNC. Having different performance tiers inside the whole of the dps role is a bad idea. It only causes problems, and fixes nothing.

[Valence]

As I said, it used to be until the last patch where they buffed it enough to completely overtake DNC and BRD on literally everything. If you go down percentiles, MCH gets ahead even more as a result.

[brinn12]

Also one other thing to note: Machinist's current median is lower than Bard's or Dancer's 7.2 median, and none of these jobs got nerfed. I definitely wouldn't make conclusions based on current numbers.

[Carighan]

Also one other thing to note: Machinist's current median is lower than Bard's or Dancer's 7.2 median, and none of these jobs got nerfed. I definitely wouldn't make conclusions based on current numbers.

That's interesting.

This has to be because on average higher-end groups run other jobs so the numbers for Machinists skew on the lower-performing-groups-side, right?

[brinn12]

That's interesting.

This has to be because on average higher-end groups run other jobs so the numbers for Machinists skew on the lower-performing-groups-side, right?

This could be a factor. It's hard to tell exactly why. BRD even got a single-target buff, but its personal damage is much lower. The data likely includes more messy runs (percentage wise), which also take longer overall.

[Carighan]

As always with modern design of jobs in FFXIV, an additional crux is that there is absolutely no reason for something like Autocrossbow or Scattergun to even exist. FFXIV employs no mezz-style CC (and to that end, no meaningful CC at all), so there is no reason to have separate AoE skills. Every single-target skill could instead be "Deals X damage to target + Y% less to surrounding targets", and all AoEs skills could be removed to clean up the hotbar at exactly 0 loss of gameplay. And as a side-benefit, this would fix many of the issues of the current AoE gameplay of Machinist.

[Carighan]

Yeah I agree. rDPS has to be equivalent between selfish and support jobs. That's the whole point, that support jobs get their rDPS from other players while selfish jobs do it themselves.

[Raikai]

Yeah I agree. rDPS has to be equivalent between selfish and support jobs. That's the whole point, that support jobs get their rDPS from other players while selfish jobs do it themselves.

When talking about the Aiming group, where their outsourced rdps contribution is much more constant than of those with just 2min meta buffs (Ninja, Monk, Summoner, etc...), it puts MCH in a weird spot because of how well this supporting aspect scales: Unless you're playing with really bad dpsers or in Light Party duties, MCH won't ever find a favorable place. (and the irony of it all is how botched MCH's aoe kit is, to even be a greater boon in Light Parties... sigh.)

And if they overbuff MCH to compensate for this, or make it more desirable, suddenly DNC and BRD will get heavily overshadowed.

To me it's just a symptom of being part of this Aiming group, and the best way to solve is to give a rotational damage buff to MCH in the likeness of Standard Finish (buffs one person) or the songs (buffs whole party for less). However to avoid overlapping those, it could be a damage debuff on the target instead. They would probably also include a 120s buff to the job, but that's beyond the point.