What is wrong about making machinist good?

[brinn12]

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'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.

[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?

[brinn12]

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?

If SE thinks the job is strong, they'll buff DNC and BRD, meaning MCH would be strong only for an odd patch without a new Ultimate fight.

MCH is likely evenly balanced with the other ranged. Many good players have abandoned this tier completely, with the current BiS being useless. As I've said, we should wait until the next tier to make any conclusions, which Patch 7.1 / 7.2 already taught us. Until then, these threads should exist to highlight what has been happening over the long term.

[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?

[Valence]

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?

I think there is a conflation of many complaints about the job among which the inconsistent dps output/model is only one of them. A lot of people's griefs with the job are also directly aimed at the actual class design and mechanics where a lot of very common complaints have been recurring for ages (no aoe battery, flamethrower conflicting with the rest of the kit on heat generation, no charges regen from autocrossbow, no AoE nor crit on WF, no kit interactions whatsoever, etc).

[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.

[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.

[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.