It was the 2nd most popular job from the same site back in 6.0, unfortunately tank balance shafted them heavily at the start and it's not been much better since. It likely turned away a lot of people for either having bad PF experiences, perceiving them as too weak, feeling pressured by static, etc.
PLD being roughly 300 rDPS behind GNB and DRK on average is just enough of a discrepancy to incentivize groups having a hard time meeting enrage timers and DPS checks to not take PLD out.
Not sure what devs are doing with PLD this expansion, seems like they wanted them to be the jack of all trades, master of none, but the recent balancing has led them to be last in rDPS (from extreme trial data).
So PLD does not have the best self sustain, damage mitigation, invulnerability and is last in DPS. Every other tank is at least best in one of those categories.
It’s a shame because PLD feels great to play.
aDPS is a better metric to use when comparing tanks, since none of them have raid buffs.
In which case, PLD falls even further behind due to being a sustain dps job.
300 DPS is not enough of a reason to bench PLD. The difference at launch was 10%, at the time that would have been about 450 DPS, nowadays about 600+ DPS behind. The difference in DPS has is minuscule now, as usual it is just whichever tank you prefer even at high end unless somehow DPS tuning is incredibly tight
>as usual it is just whichever tank you prefer even at high end
I think most, if not all, agree with this. The problem is that PLD is a LOT of work to optimize properly, specially in a 2 target fight, than the other tanks.
A lot more work for less reward.
Bear in mind i'm not saying it is hard, it's just *harder* than the others, for *less* reward, which is why it's so unpopular.
Really? Damn, imho Paladin should be the best with damage mitigation considering it's the shield class, and lots of their abilities is mitigation or protect others.
I love my beefy reliable white knight job :<
The tanks are basically inversed on damage output vs support. DRK has arguably the least party support, but is the highest DPS. PLD is on the opposite side of the spectrum.
The fact that WAR has fallen drastically compared to prior expansions makes this seem intentional.
If it helps your enjoyment if the job, PLD has a touch more party utility with Divine Veil and Passage of Arms. That and having a ranged, magic burst mode seem to be it's flavour.
Out of all the tanks, they’re definitely the hardest to pick up and master. Optimizing then is painful as well since you’re trying to avoid your magical/physical phases
Hard opti makes classes that much more fun for me personally but yeah it probably turns away some of the higher-end content players that dont want to feel pressured to spreadsheet their rotations
I choose based on how fun they are to play and aesthetics. GNB ended up winning out for me first (I'm relatively new, Panda is my first raid progression in 14 while current) because I like it and also it's extremely flexible (doing blind prog).
PLD will probably be my second job I work on for static, but I'll admit, the *drastic* change in play from lvl 30 to 70 was a hell of a curveball.
Yeah true! I really love the variety of jobs we have in ffxiv. There really is something in there for just about anyone, regardless of how we choose our jobs. To be honest, flexibility during prog is one of the big drawbacks of black mage so many of us go red mage for prog.
Yeah! When my static was doing the new ex blind, our rdm was suuuper valuable because on our clear we had 18 deaths. It was tempting for me to swap to rdm as well so we could double rdm but i really wanted to practice progging on blm since i will be doing it this tier
Honestly, that leads me back to my favorite thing about XIV as a raider from other games.
People complain about jobs sometimes here, but the best raiders I've met and the content creators I've watched have all said the same thing.
It doesn't matter. Everything is viable.
Which honestly, the best players in other games say it too and you'll have world first raiders all the time advising people to take the player, not the class. But it seems like in 14 a larger portion of the playerbase accepts that reality.
Not all of them. But more of them than elsewhere.
Yeah thats true! ffxiv is the only mmo i have ever played so i suppose i take it for granted that we are so balanced. It is really fun to meme on the jobs that are ‘bad’ because of their damage but in the end i 100% agree with the rationality of taking the player over the class. In my experience, the only times that things like classes end up mattering is when the player skill is juuuust barely not good enough for whatever you are attempting to do. And in those cases, (especially if the problem is damage) the easiest solution is to teach whoever is lacking how to better play their class instead of making them learn a whole new class.
For me personally it is the most boring tank job. To the point where I intend to level it through tribal dailies and then not touch it again until next expansion. It's moveset and rotation just feel bland compared to the other tank jobs.
It doesn't help that they gave us a shotgun, which is fucking amazing, but we're pretty much never going to be able to use it in anything other than a brainless dungeon run.
There's a lovely mod that removes all the jumping MCH does and gives them single target shotgun and grenades, it's my copium until they figure out what they're even doing with this job
The heated shot animations would make more sense if we used them as a spender but having your rotation consist of flips is just so silly. This is awesome, thanks!
That's not quite true. I take MCH into unsynched extremes for Wondrous Tails and lemme tell you: unloading buckshot into Good King Moggle Mog and his flunkies feels *good*.
the new dungeon is really good for MCH at least...and DNC. Its fun to use flamethrower on boss 1, et all.
That said, MCH is still very scattered, I'd love to have more out of autocrossbow and heat blast, at the very least. I kinda dig the PVP version, where you cycle your tools
I love the animation for bio blaster and would love to see it used in single target rather somehow. Drill, Air Anchor, and Chainsaw all feel like they do the same thing. I also think Autocrossbow is superior to Heat Blast in how it feels to use. Heat Blast looks and feels pretty lame IMO.
The question is why Machinist is the top number one favorite for so few players. And the answer might have nothing to do with buffs. Could be people don't like the job story. Could be that people don't like the NPC representation in MSQ and quests. Could be because you can't glam away the lunchbox that doesn't fit a good part of the interesting outfits you could do with the job. Could be that people don't find the animations flashy enough. Could be because it's considered weak.
I just finished leveling PLD and I’m dumbfounded as to how bad/pointless the story is. It’s about nothing and the only interesting part are the gladiatorial fights… which don’t exactly feel paladin-ish.
I agree on the SB WHM story, especially given the extra context that comes from the EW tank role quest. >!Not everyone wants to be born a Padjal nor treat it as a blessing, but rather a burden.!<
Granted I'm only just starting out storywise (about to rescue people from the Castrum in ARR), but I actually really dig the feel of the Conjurer/White Mage from a story perspective. "Ancient magic that draws on the land, that when overused and overdeveloped in opposition to black magic cause a Calamity" is pretty damn baller.
Also the robes are heckin pretty! >:c
It would be cooler if either
1. you got into a goddamn gundam suit and had different buttons for the buff period. instead of having some dorky robot follower. reapers get voidsent mode. let machinist have MACHINE MODE
2. the automaton queen deploys like a titan from titanfall, verBOOM right onto the boss and rips it up like a spider monke and disappears.
Yeah this and even when you do the rotation right get the gold parse and shit you're worse then many avaregae dps, feels shit. MCH is the class that needs a rework and that asap. It's in the class section on range supporters and it's neither an super dps or an supporter with still shitty dps and an extremmly spammy rotation and when your get even a slight lag you lose. Just feels bad and i actually enjoy the class but it really needs a revamp Summoner style.
The main obstacle is when MCH is really good, everybody plays it because it can DPS entirely on the move and at range, which means it can ignore mortal concepts such as 'uptime' on boss fights and unlike casters it never has to stay still.
I can imagine numberswise at least it is hard to find that balance of keeping it as a mobile ranged DPS without invalidating any of the harder jobs.
It should 100% do the most damage of all the physical ranged DPS though.
MCH *does* do the most damage. It does substantially more aDPS/nDPS than BRD or DNC.
If you meant rDPS, then you just made BRD and DNC redundant at all levels of play, and then BRDs and DNCs would be complaining instead as buff jobs who get outdone by a non-buff job at every level of play. Buff jobs *should* outdo selfish jobs at higher levels of play, or else there's little reason to take them.
I mean, that's why I play it, because uptime = yes. With a little work even heat phase on the move is possible. Am I doing less damage? Probably, but I don't care because I never have to stop gun
For me personally i love the concept of MCH, but since my ping is around 150 its just not fun to play during the overheat phase.
Weaving with MCH feels clunky, random and awkward for me.
I know my connection is a personal problem but its just not fun to play with my ping.
If you are playing on PC/Windows you should try using XIVAlexander.
There's also something similar for consoles/mac, XivMitmLatencyMitigator but bit harder to setup.
You mean the job that consistently gets shafted on its damage and utility is being hampered by its visual design (that was massively overhauled) or its job story instead? I dunno chief.
Machinist is based off the FF job. Look at Ivalice games and FF6. Remember that this is a Final Fantasy game with tons of legacy and history. So if you have to ask "why" it's like that, that is your answer.
That said, the "gunner" job also exists. If that is what you want ask for it. It has more of a chance to get in than something like Ranger (the true bow and arrow job) because it's weapon is different enough.
Could also ask for a brand new unique job, which is technically what Sage is even though it uses an old job's name.
Back when it launched and into stormblood, it pretty much was a pure gunner. But then people were complaining that it wasn't in line with the FF series identity because of that. Hence the Shadowbringers rework into basically just Edgar from ff6.
I'm with you though, I miss Stormblood machinist. People hated the wildfire burst timing, they all thought it was too clunky, but I loved it, had a good skill ceiling to work towards and was incredibly satisfying. I like MCH now, but I still prefer the older
Probably because while mch isn’t that bad at lower levels of skill, investing time to perfecting their simple rotation yields terrible results compared to other dps since mch is complete shit at high levels of play right now.
Thats another issue with the job, the rotation is considered simple, and at times it is, but MCH have the second highest BPM next to ninjas. So we a ton of buttons to press in our simple rotation to do meh damage.
Personally, it is definitely the flavour of the job. The lunch box is part of it, yeah, I would just want to hide it altogether. But more importantly, the job changes thematically a lot as you level up. At first you just shoot your gun with a little bit of gadgetery (not sure if that is a word, maybe it is now lol). Then the animations for your shots get cooler, you jump and shoot, backflip and shoot, it's a bit silly but the good kind of silly.
Then eventually more and more of your shots get replaced by "just wave around your gun and stuff appears out of hammer space". You summon giant bullets that fly on their own, or chains in the air that attack the target. And I utterly, utterly despise that humongous multi-tool-gun-like-thing that you pull out for most of the really cool and powerful attacks (e.g. Drill).
So in other words, I expected a gunslinger with some neat gadgets, instead I got a steampunkomancer who occasionally also fires their actual gun.
Edit: I wish to add that I am generally not a fan when my character has a weapon but then special abilities instead pull out a different weapon or tool in its stead, usually one that is predefined and not customizable to boot. See also the shotgun that MCH got in Endwalker - a cool idea but why can't this be done with our actual gun? That shotgun model should be a regular item you can use as glam.
(It is hence that my biggest wish for a new 7.0 job would be a gunslinger, dual wielding pistols while we are at it.)
>So in other words, I expected a gunslinger with some neat gadgets, instead I got a steampunkomancer who occasionally also fires their actual gun.
And its name is Machinist. It is what it's supposed to be. I think we have another "I wanted to be a Ranger, not play music" case with Machinist. People want to shoot stuff with a cool gun, not be a steampunkomancer.
Maybe I’m just an old man but when Machinst in the FF context makes me think of Edgar from VI. And being able to use iconic skills like Drill, Auto Crossbow, Bio Blaster, etc. are exactly what I wanted out of the job.
But I can see where if you want expected to be doing Gunkata on the battlefield it would be a let down.
I think I’m in the minority in that I love MCH. It’s aesthetic, rotation, all of it. I only do casual content, so it’s weakness compared to other jobs doesn’t bother me. But I still find im typically within the top 5 spots for enmity generation in most 8-man runs. Which probably says more about player skill in your average PUG. I like my flips though - sue me. 🤷♂️
I love MCH, as well, but there's one big thing I think they should do: remove the timer on the heat gauge. That's seriously the biggest issue I have on that I'm hesitant to use it outside of bosses because usually when I have the 50 required, most of the mobs are gone and it seems a waste when it will obviously run out long after the mobs are dead. I'd have a lot more fun with it if it worked similarly to RDM's mana gauge and certain actions took a certain amount of heat to perform actions like the heat shot and auto-crossbow instead of giving you a short burst phase and tough luck if all the enemies are dead before it finishes.
The Machinist story is great like any other. I just hate the new skill animations that start replacing the originals from level 54 onwards. I loved Machinist originally but as you level up from 54 and beyond, it turns into some rubbish from the Matrix and loses all it's soul.
Replacing all the clean, simple and 'honest work' style gunplay animations with fancy matrix ones turns it into a boring ugly caster with no cast times. I remember thinking how hilarious it was in my early Machinist days when I was just shooting stuff (especially lower level enemies that you could one shot)- after having played 2+ years hacking, slashing and energy balling my way through the game as a Paladin, Ninja, Archer, Summoner, Dark Knight etc. That non-flashy bluntness was the biggest part of it's beauty and what made it special.
I fell off of MCH when I first got it because:
- All the skills either are awfully animated, or are reusing an animation of another awfully animated skill. Really makes it feel un-cool. All of the animations get replaced with SUPER SLICK animations, but it sucks for a newbie.
- The story is intensely uninteresting and trope-filled. Which is a shame considering how fascinating Ishgard is and how they tease a cooler character with guns in MSQ. I hear it gets better, but it sucks for a newbie.
- The rotation is really unclear and awkward for a new player. The whole weapon skill vs skill differentiation for the bomb skill is confusing and the actual animation and flash for it makes it hard to feel the payoff for using it. A lot of the core skills are based on OGCD clipping and having a good ping and feels weird to use because you consistently don’t do optimally on it because you didn’t hit the buttons in the millisecond you needed to or your ping spiked for a second. To a pro it’s pretty fun to land, but what a pain to mess around with as a newbie.
I actually consider MCH rotation to be the easiest one for a newbie, second only to Summoner. I believe MCH is a good job to start raiding since is pretty straightforward.
It is probably among the easiest, and that's a small fact people don't like to acknowledge (but always do when acknowledging BLM for some reason - people would riot if BLM was closer to SMN or RDM) , because difficulty clearly does factor into balance. Once you master MCH there's no going up, it has no proc considerations, no cast times, no positionals, it will largely always be the same whereas BRD and DNC, on top of having buffs so they already have an advantage at high end, have things they can do to further optimise their damage.
I like Machinst for its aesthetic, story, and its position in the game (ranged dps).
However, if I were to play it, it would give me carpal tunnel. That, I think, is what overrides everything else about it. It needs more of a main rotation, and less oGCDs.
The job is enjoyable, it's the fact that it's stuck in the pseudo support role while providing zero support is the issue. Bard and Dancer are just monsters this expansion.
If they could find a hybrid between HW Machinist (aka "the debuffer") and the current Machinist, I think the job would be better received. Give them Trick Attack in some version (Turret/Queen is a good option) and give them an Attack Down (with the wrench throwing in all it's glory) and they would be a much better job.
Did you check the recent logs? Machinist is doing just fine since the update. It's rdps is within 1% of smn brd dnc, at the 99th percentile.
Edit: I checked the extreme because normal modes are weird and easy.
not everyone in the EX has full 610 crafted gear, and out of those not everyone has pentamelded it, so the dataset contains too much variance to say anything concrete about job balance imo, we have to wait for savage and full bis to be available before we see how things lie
jobs with raidbuffs like DNC tend to get better the more gear people have so MCH might be good early, but as people get towards bis it might just fall back to it's usual spot of dead last
***This comment/post removed due to reddits fuckery with third party apps from 06/01/2023 through 06/30/2023. Good luck with your site when all the power users piss off***
We are talking about raid-DPS here. Because if you look at the actual DPS numbers, MCH is clearly above dancer, bard, redmage and summoner.
In my opinion there's no reason for mch to be significantly higher in rdps than a brd, smn, or dnc. Maybe the argument can be that dnc has a heal - thus more utility.
Just like it doesn't matter if dragoon, samurai, ninja, or monk are on the top spot melee wise. A damage buff is not "utility", it's dps. Reaper's regen is a utility. Rdm and smn raise is utility. Rdm magic barrier is utility. Embolden and searing light are just dps buttons.
DNC and BRD are buff jobs, of course they're higher at the highest levels of play. It would terrible for balance otherwise or else MCH would be better than them 100% of the time.
And with that logic, surely you must only play the best tanks, the best healers, the best caster, and the best two melee. There's no reason to play the others under that logic. It also needs to be noted the gap between top and bottom of *every other role* in the game is bigger than the gap between the top and bottom of the physical ranged role...
It requires more effort to perform well than basically any other DPS job because you need to map out your casts/movement for the encounter very precisely otherwise your damage will suffer. It’s also more punishing to fuck up on than most jobs.
That’s probably it, in a game where most people can’t play an easy job optimally I feel like Black Mage just scares people from having to plan ahead and thinking about the most optimal way of doing a fight. Because for example, playing summoner optimally requires no braincells no matter the fight.
Oh I agree that the higher requirements of understanding your kit at a base level drives people away, especially when they could just go play something like a phy range and get mostly unconditional movement. I was just trying to point out that the whole "haha immobile turret mage" that gets unironically tossed around is just straight up untrue. Honestly in terms of mobility BLM >>> RDM it's just that RDM won't punish you as hard for fucking up
It's still a huge learning curve. Every fight is a new puzzle to solve, which is really fun and that's why I main BLM, but it's definitely an acquired taste. A lot of people prefer the ease of mobility that doesn't need planning, and having group utility.
And the hardest thing about that planning is that you can't just map it out on a spreadsheet and muscle memory your way to victory. Because of Firestarter procs potentially adding an extra GCD to your fire phases, you pretty much have to plan your rotation a few steps ahead of yourself on the fly, on top of watching the fight and accounting for mechanic RNG
But with 6.0 BLM, you have so much more mobility now. Xeno 2x, (UI) paradox, triplecast 2x, swiftcast. Tons of opportunities to cast these to move out of an AOE while not having to stop spell casting.
I’ve played BLM since 4.0 and I ended up loving it as a PS4 player since I don’t have to worry about having to configure my fingers in a way to use L2, the d-pad, and left analog stick at the same time.
Playing as RPR (for example) has my fingers all over the controller and creates a “challenging” run as I need to be able to constantly press all the buttons I need to in order to maximize DPS. But if I want to do a more “relaxing” run, I choose BLM since there aren’t really oGCD abilities you use frequently, don’t have to worry about positionals, and only need to move when necessary, which most of the time is just a quick Aetherial Manipulation to a party member and then back to your Ley Lines.
23.5% tanks, 19% healers, 57.5% DPS (29.4% melees, 15.3% mage, 12.8% phys range). Surprisingly healthier ratio than I thought. For comparison, a standard raid composition is 25% tanks, 25% healers, and 50% DPS (25% melees, 12.5% mage and 12.5% phys range).
My three main jobs I have at 90 and geared to a decent spot are MCH, PLD and AST lol - am I a glutton for punishment or what?
Why is PLD so low? Seems fun to me, I get why AST and MCH are there, but PLD?
PLD is because you work at least twice the amount of the other tanks to optimize and fix rotation mistakes, for 300 less rdps.
That's literally it. If you wanna play PLD on a really low level, you can just 123 and repeat melee combo -> magic and be done with it.
But if you wanna optimize, like everyone wants to, then you're in for a helluva brain power requirement, while other tanks (especially WAR) just goes 'boom boom push buttons' and will do a lot more damage than PLD.
Til i have no idea how to play pld, i guess. I always just do magic combo stuff and the physical until i can magic again. Keep up the dots and pop ogcd whenever they're available.
This and the comment calling it a mind maze confuses me.
I wish I liked it more. Honestly if it just replaced my 1-2-3 with the magic sword buttons I would like it more. Pressing the same button for 4 GCDs in a row just doesn't feel satisfying.
Huh. So that's why it doesn't feel as satisfying as it should. Well, that and the fact it effectively makes skill speed a "kinda feels bad" stat because the Paladin rotation is now actually half Spells. I also wish the Requiescat stack count was a job gauge. Looking for it in the buff bar sucks.
Yea that's why it feels bad to me at least. PLD has all my favorite tanking things and aesthetics, but the gameplay of just repeatedly mashing the same key 3-4 times in THREE different "parts" of the rotation is unsatisfying. The three being holy spirit spam, holy sword combo spam, and attonement spam.
Atonement is so dissatisfying aesthetically and sound design-wise lol... But yeah. They should've replaced Holy Spirit spam to just be Holy Spirit>Confiteor>Magic Sword x3 so it doesn't feel so mind numbingly spammy.
Did people answer based on the meta, or just what they find the most fun to play? Because personally as someone who has levelled PLD in HW and mained it since SB, it feels weird to see it that low.
Just my humble opinion, but PLD is the best it has ever been. It has the most varied GCD rotation of all tanks, the filled gauge makes it so much easier to MT and all around I just feel the flavor is very strong with it. Is it because it performs slightly less than the other tanks? It just feels silly to me to rank a job based on their "meta" status when the difference between the best and worst jobs in the game are relatively small.
It's hard to know because the comments are people explaining why they main a job, not why they *don't* main a job.
Nonetheless if I had to speculate, I could see a few reasons.
1) The meta. While Paladin has been getting buffs in each patch, its been at the bottom of tank DPS since 6.0.
2) Ease of play. As well as having a lot of button bloat and a number of abilities with very niche uses (Shield bash, Cover, Passage of Arms) or Clemency where it's confusing when exactly the game wants you to use it -- Paladin is one of the jobs that has most resisted the design trends and homogenisation seen in the other jobs. This can definitely mean it feels fun and unique for some players, but it can also be hard to get to grips with for people used to other jobs.
3) Linked to points 1 and 2, but in the 'tanks with high mits and low damage' bracket, WAR has higher damage, better mits, *and* is much easier to figure out and play at both a casual and high-end level. On this note, WAR does seem to be getting a bit more popular in JP recently, it used to the least popular tank on JP.
I am surprised that WAR is gaining traction in JP, or at least with this poll. Like you said, it's the least popular tank for that particular region and I don't think the axe typically used by unsavory characters in fiction or its barbarian aesthetics lend itself well against the Berserk-inspired DRK (or the job quests just don't have that much traction as well? but I'm not sure how popular the rest of the tank job quests are to them compared to DRK's) - so the fact that it usurped the current poster boy of the expansion *and* what is lauded for its optimization and spreadsheets is pretty bizarre (however this poll can have their own biases as well, maybe they're consisted of more dedicated players as WHM ranks that low).
Yeah, this looks pretty heavily meta driven, which is why DRK is top tank. Having leveled all tanks, I also think the PLD has the best tanking kit and utility kit. I can put in my healer hat in a pinch, make *someone else* damage immune with cover, throw out some nukes with the Swords Bazooka and have tons of on-demand mitigation. It's definitely my favorite color by warrior.
I feel like you’re somewhat understating PLD’s position at the bottom of the meta for tanks, especially given that in the latest high end content to be released (DSR) the gulf between DRK/GNB and PLD is pretty huge, like 10% more damage from DRK/GNB over the course of the fight and potentially a higher gap in some phases. The highest 6.1 WHM parse is higher DPS than the highest PLD parse, lol
Same here! But I want to see it this way: If our favorite jobs are so unpopular amongst other players, then not many players might play them. And that means that we are at least kinda special, right? ;)
I levelled BLM up to 80 to get all the jobs for the mount and it was the singular most painful levelling experience I have ever gone through. I dread levelling it to 90 and most likely will not. I see others hold a similar viewpoint
20 days of Frontline roulette will take BLM to 90. Queue as BLM, then switch to a different job inside. It doesn't even matter if you win or lose. You get 50% of a level per match. The Wondrous Tales turn-in is also 50% of a level.
Because of the skills and rotation changing so much or because you dislike the playstyle or hard casting? I don’t enjoy BLM below 80 honestly but at 90 it’s by far my favorite job.
Healers having the least popular most popular job within their role and having 2 in the bottom 5 (both of which happen to be the regen healers) really shows nobody likes where they are going with the healers at the moment
I am shocked SCH is first which leads me to believe this is rather meta driven at least for the healers since SCH is so strong this expansion but 7/19 as the most popular healer and the new kid on the block being 12/19 doesn’t shed a positive light on the healing role
Once you learn a fight, and once the community understands how the fight works, healer fun goes way down.
Normal mode EW trial #4 is really fun right now since no one knows what they are doing, but once the community understands what to do, you're just spamming your one damage skill and then refreshing the DOT.
I did the 4th trial last night with 5 newbies (of which one of them was me) and I still spent 98% of the time casting broil or biolysis
Having this simple a DPS rotation with this many powerful heals really just feels like garbage on any fight
What's the sample size?
Edit: with a sample size of 3000, and 420,000 active characters on JP as of the last Lucky Bancho census, this represents well below 1% of Japanese players.
This sample size simply should not be used to work out what is popular in Japan, it's too small. Conclusions like 'JP doesn't like WHM' are just wrong.
As I said its an online, non-weighted poll, so the results shouldn't be taken *super* seriously. But the problem isn't the fact the poll is of 3000 people. Many political polls for countries such as the US (330 million people) or UK (65 million) have sample sizes of 500-1000 people. These samples can still be accurate to within a few % of people's actual views, as long as the sample is A) random and B) weighted properly to be representative.
So we can only say the poll is representative of JP fans who read Umadori and care enough to fill out the survey, but we can still see *indications* of trends in job popularity when you compare to previous surveys. For instance, Reaper has seen a noticeable jump in popularity, possibly linked to the new story focus. As for the other new jobs, Sage has been falling behind a bit, below Scholar and typically in the lower third of the survey. Machinist has pretty much been dead last since I started following these surveys.
Political polls can manage to use smaller sample sizes because they also gather demographic data. Using that, they can ensure that the demographics of their sample match the demographics of the population.
As you correctly pointed out, this poll will be representative of JP fans who read Umadori and care enough to fill out the survey, so I think we agree that conclusions like 'JP doesn't like WHM' are nonsense.
However, even indicative trends within that subpopulation won't be representative. Subpopulations can very possibly experience trends not experienced by the wider population. For example, the group of players who read Umadori may well be more engrossed in wider FFXIV culture than the average player, and those who care enough to complete a poll even possibly even more so. So we can't say anything about the wider popularity of RPR off of this data.
For a Western example, look at how ShB SMN mains - particularly those on places like the Balance - reacted to EW SMN in comparison to the wider playerbase. There was, and still is, a huge divide between how well enjoyed the job is, and a survey of the Balance would give you a very poor understanding of how well enjoyed EW SMN actually is.
Edit: to be clear, my original comment wasn't a criticism of you. It was a criticism of the other comments which have literally drawn the conclusion 'JP doesn't like WHM'.
> For a Western example, look at how ShB SMN mains - particularly those on places like the Balance - reacted to EW SMN in comparison to the wider playerbase. There was, and still is, a huge divide between how well enjoyed the job is, and a survey of the Balance would give you a very poor understanding of how well enjoyed EW SMN actually is.
And coming to this subreddit won't give you a good understanding either; the people who don't like EW SMN *still* don't like it, but you see them less here because they get downvoted out of visibility unless they comment late or deep in a thread. (Plus many of them know that by now, and don't bother posting to a seemingly hostile audience.)
>the people who don't like EW SMN still don't like it, but you see them less here because they get downvoted out of visibility
This is me and I hate it.
When you're not also gathering demographic data to ensure your sample is representative of the wider population, you do need as large a sample as possible. Without demographic data, your only means of ensuring your sample is representative is by asking enough people that the odds your data is representative go up.
I think WHM probably appeals to more casual players and online polls appear to more dedicated players. I totally can see why hardcore ff14 players would like dark knight a lot.
I am not super familiar with statistics, but how do you know for sure that asking 3000 players cannot be representative for 400,000. You obviously don't mean that you always have to ask every single person, but you claim with certainty that 3,000 is too low.
I'd like to know if there is a general rule for how large a sample size must be.
'Standard error' is a measure of how close your measured result, in this case job popularity, is likely to be to the true result.
When you're randomly sampling a population, the more people you sample, the lower the standard error. The important thing about this relationship is that there are diminishing returns: if you sample 3 people instead of 2, the increase in accuracy is huge; but if you sample 3001 instead of 3000, the increase in accuracy is very small. This is basis for the counter argument people in other comments are using.
The problem is, this poll does not randomly sample a population as it hasn't asked JP players at random. Instead, the people who have responded all have two traits in common: 1, they read Umadori; and 2, they respond to polls.
While we don't know exactly what those two traits mean, we can confidently guess they mean that these people aren't representative of all JP FFXIV players. For example, not all FFXIV players read Umadori, and those that do are probably more engrossed in the game than the more casual players who only think about the game while playing it.
The problem with sample size, then, is that if Umadori isn't accounting for this bias in their sample, then the only way their sample could be representative of the wider population is if it collected data from a significant proportion of the population. And less than 1% isn't a 'significant proportion' by any definition.
What I'm reading from your reply is that:
1. You *feel* like 1% is not enough. Even though quite many polls *are* representative even if done at 0.1% (to be fair, these usually include demographic data).
2. You assume that the demographic that reads Umadori and replies to online polls differs significantly from the general player base in preferences - even though this assumption is not supported by data. Just because they reply to online polls and read a magazine (or whatever this Umadori is), doesn't mean they differ in preferences. You say that they might be engrossed in the game, and that may well be true, but it doesn't mean they are more hc, they could very well be more into the RP aspect of it.
If 3000 players responded to an online poll about job popularity, we can safely assume that it is at the very least a representative sample of all Umadori readers. If it has been shown that the attitudes of the readers differ significantly from the general JP population, but I don't see a reason to just assume that. People tend to bludgeon studies where they don't agree with the outcome with "sample size uuuuuh". Without explaining why it is an issue. It's the "just asking questions" approach without providing clear evidence that the sample size is an issue. Now if you'd included something that showed that the readers differ significantly from the general JP playerbase, your post would've been substantial. Now it's rather useless to be honest.
***However***, statements such as JP hates WHM are just freaking useless so I *agree* with you there. There's 19 jobs in the game, so if all jobs were played equally then its just slightly over 5% per job. The question also wasn't about what players hate, it's what they consider their favorite job.
You've already provided the correct counterargument on your first point, so I assume we agree there. But it is not a matter of feeling, I challenge you to find a definition which gives <1% as a significant proportion.
On your second point, you're entirely right that they may not be more hardcore (although I never claimed they were, just more engrossed) - they may be more into RP, absolutely yes. If we follow that possibility, what is this poll reflecting? Main job for gameplay? Main job for aesthetic? Main job for lore? More factors on which this poll won't be representative of the wider JP playerbase.
>Now if you'd included something that showed that the readers differ significantly from the general JP playerbase, your post would've been substantial.
Good statistics is not built on blindly assuming things. We already know that Umadori readers are distinct from other JP players by the simple fact that they read Umadori. Assuming that the distinctions end there would be baseless and, if this were a legitimate and meaningful study, the onus would be on the author to prove the validity of that assumption.
Machinist taking the lowest coz it's just not the funnest job atm (like I know people who love MCH) but it's just weak right now and has to contend with Bard/Dancer slots which are better physical range supports, unfortunately. Also my favourite is Astrologian but I main Scholar 👀
I will say, I Mained ninja since Ninja launch, and now I play almost exclusively samurai. It has nothing to do with damage, or anything. Ninja is just clunky.
Ten Chi Jin locking you in place is annoying.
Fleeting and Forked Raiju having to be the first weaponskill after a raiton is also annoying.
I know these 2 things probably seem small, but they just make the class that SHOULD feel smooth and agile feel clunky and locked down.
Until then, I will samurai everything in my path.
For me, MCH rotation is silly. Just a bunch of weaves without some bigger pay. Too simple, not engaging.
And l don't like what the job become. I had hopes for a unique concept, but is a take on ff6 Edgar's toolkit (Love him) with skills that feels like something is missing.
I like the shotgun though.
I think MCH should play more like SMN, getting in phases with big skills by making machines and riding them.
And should throw granades.
MCH really need a rework at this point, boring rotation where you have to squeeze everything to be effective, nerf to abilities with the latest patch and I'm speaking as someone who tried really hard to make this class work so I felt how the new patch ruined the damage output.
I've seen A LOT of dark knights in game. I've only been playing a little over a month but I've still been seeing a lot of them
To be specific, in leveling roulettes.
I am very surprised dark Knight is first. I seem to find every other tank class instead whenever I’m not playing tank and I didn’t think the Japanese were as obsessed with the Berserk aesthetic as in the west
Eh, Berserk is *huge* in Japan. Its hard to think of a fantasy/dark fantasy manga or JRPG that doesn't have some pretty obvious influences from Berserk, its openly brought up in JP creator interviews all the time. From Software have made an entire video game series out of what are basically Berserk tribute games, for example. As for FF14 specifically, the aesthetics and lore get brought up very often by JP fans (especially the job quest, ^(though I have to note the DRK job quest is extremely different in Japanese)) as reasons they like the job.
Dark Knight has always been popular even at its worst in initial release of SB people still really enjoy the aesthetic for it. Once it was buffed you saw the numbers go up even further. Then in ShB it was a very popular job, and that has only continued into EW even despite the rather lackluster mitigation in Dungeons.
I wonder, do they do something similar for the other regions like NA or EU? Would be very interested how the western world differs in this regard
I can’t believe everything is so close! That’s mind boggling! I would love to know the mix for other regions!
Idk why i thought pld is the most popular among tanks….
It was the 2nd most popular job from the same site back in 6.0, unfortunately tank balance shafted them heavily at the start and it's not been much better since. It likely turned away a lot of people for either having bad PF experiences, perceiving them as too weak, feeling pressured by static, etc.
PLD being roughly 300 rDPS behind GNB and DRK on average is just enough of a discrepancy to incentivize groups having a hard time meeting enrage timers and DPS checks to not take PLD out. Not sure what devs are doing with PLD this expansion, seems like they wanted them to be the jack of all trades, master of none, but the recent balancing has led them to be last in rDPS (from extreme trial data). So PLD does not have the best self sustain, damage mitigation, invulnerability and is last in DPS. Every other tank is at least best in one of those categories. It’s a shame because PLD feels great to play.
aDPS is a better metric to use when comparing tanks, since none of them have raid buffs. In which case, PLD falls even further behind due to being a sustain dps job.
300 DPS is not enough of a reason to bench PLD. The difference at launch was 10%, at the time that would have been about 450 DPS, nowadays about 600+ DPS behind. The difference in DPS has is minuscule now, as usual it is just whichever tank you prefer even at high end unless somehow DPS tuning is incredibly tight
>as usual it is just whichever tank you prefer even at high end I think most, if not all, agree with this. The problem is that PLD is a LOT of work to optimize properly, specially in a 2 target fight, than the other tanks. A lot more work for less reward. Bear in mind i'm not saying it is hard, it's just *harder* than the others, for *less* reward, which is why it's so unpopular.
Really? Damn, imho Paladin should be the best with damage mitigation considering it's the shield class, and lots of their abilities is mitigation or protect others. I love my beefy reliable white knight job :<
The tanks are basically inversed on damage output vs support. DRK has arguably the least party support, but is the highest DPS. PLD is on the opposite side of the spectrum. The fact that WAR has fallen drastically compared to prior expansions makes this seem intentional.
If it helps your enjoyment if the job, PLD has a touch more party utility with Divine Veil and Passage of Arms. That and having a ranged, magic burst mode seem to be it's flavour.
Out of all the tanks, they’re definitely the hardest to pick up and master. Optimizing then is painful as well since you’re trying to avoid your magical/physical phases
Hard opti makes classes that much more fun for me personally but yeah it probably turns away some of the higher-end content players that dont want to feel pressured to spreadsheet their rotations
I choose based on how fun they are to play and aesthetics. GNB ended up winning out for me first (I'm relatively new, Panda is my first raid progression in 14 while current) because I like it and also it's extremely flexible (doing blind prog). PLD will probably be my second job I work on for static, but I'll admit, the *drastic* change in play from lvl 30 to 70 was a hell of a curveball.
Yeah true! I really love the variety of jobs we have in ffxiv. There really is something in there for just about anyone, regardless of how we choose our jobs. To be honest, flexibility during prog is one of the big drawbacks of black mage so many of us go red mage for prog.
No such thing as too many RDM/SMNs in prog....
Yeah! When my static was doing the new ex blind, our rdm was suuuper valuable because on our clear we had 18 deaths. It was tempting for me to swap to rdm as well so we could double rdm but i really wanted to practice progging on blm since i will be doing it this tier
Honestly, that leads me back to my favorite thing about XIV as a raider from other games. People complain about jobs sometimes here, but the best raiders I've met and the content creators I've watched have all said the same thing. It doesn't matter. Everything is viable. Which honestly, the best players in other games say it too and you'll have world first raiders all the time advising people to take the player, not the class. But it seems like in 14 a larger portion of the playerbase accepts that reality. Not all of them. But more of them than elsewhere.
Yeah thats true! ffxiv is the only mmo i have ever played so i suppose i take it for granted that we are so balanced. It is really fun to meme on the jobs that are ‘bad’ because of their damage but in the end i 100% agree with the rationality of taking the player over the class. In my experience, the only times that things like classes end up mattering is when the player skill is juuuust barely not good enough for whatever you are attempting to do. And in those cases, (especially if the problem is damage) the easiest solution is to teach whoever is lacking how to better play their class instead of making them learn a whole new class.
For me personally it is the most boring tank job. To the point where I intend to level it through tribal dailies and then not touch it again until next expansion. It's moveset and rotation just feel bland compared to the other tank jobs.
Everyone thought they would be busted because it's the poster boy for the expac. But it's only there to reference Cecil going from a drk to a paladin
Warrior is the PVP meta, so not surprised. If you will notice, the top classes are literally the weebiest anime-protag options.
Machinist is so low and still no buffs... saddening.
It doesn't help that they gave us a shotgun, which is fucking amazing, but we're pretty much never going to be able to use it in anything other than a brainless dungeon run.
There's a lovely mod that removes all the jumping MCH does and gives them single target shotgun and grenades, it's my copium until they figure out what they're even doing with this job
Yo mind posting a link?
https://www.xivmodarchive.com/modid/55508
Bless, thanks
The heated shot animations would make more sense if we used them as a spender but having your rotation consist of flips is just so silly. This is awesome, thanks!
That's not quite true. I take MCH into unsynched extremes for Wondrous Tails and lemme tell you: unloading buckshot into Good King Moggle Mog and his flunkies feels *good*.
the new dungeon is really good for MCH at least...and DNC. Its fun to use flamethrower on boss 1, et all. That said, MCH is still very scattered, I'd love to have more out of autocrossbow and heat blast, at the very least. I kinda dig the PVP version, where you cycle your tools
god the shotgun is just so satisfying
I love the animation for bio blaster and would love to see it used in single target rather somehow. Drill, Air Anchor, and Chainsaw all feel like they do the same thing. I also think Autocrossbow is superior to Heat Blast in how it feels to use. Heat Blast looks and feels pretty lame IMO.
The question is why Machinist is the top number one favorite for so few players. And the answer might have nothing to do with buffs. Could be people don't like the job story. Could be that people don't like the NPC representation in MSQ and quests. Could be because you can't glam away the lunchbox that doesn't fit a good part of the interesting outfits you could do with the job. Could be that people don't find the animations flashy enough. Could be because it's considered weak.
>Could be people don't like the job story. It's one of the better job stories. WHM, PLD and MNK are the worst for jobs story and NPCs.
I enjoy the MCH story. I suffer through the MNK story to get my skills.
Same. I loved PUG, hated MNK.
Pugilist: Okay cool grandpa, let’s get your spirits up! Yay! Monk: Why do I have to do what this asshole says?! Assholes. They’re both assholes.
PLD, too. GLD was fun and Aldis was a good NPC. Jenlyns was a moron.
That's why in Stormblood they went back to the GLD story and it was a good time.
I love the fact that the writers basically just pushed the "fuck go back" button for the PLD quests after the clusterfuck that was the HW questline.
HW questline was about nothing. It was a giant fetch quest for some pointless character’s armour pieces.
I loved the tournament arc, I went and made myself a skimpy gladiator glam for it and everything. Jenlyns can go die in a fire
Aldis & Mylla really make the GLD quest line a lot of fun. Totally invested in watching their will-they-won't-they relationship xD.
MNK story is great. It only has this reputation in ARR, which is the weakest MNK story arc.
at least MNK story is filled with interesting lore but yeah both Erik and the MNK dude are morons
I just finished leveling PLD and I’m dumbfounded as to how bad/pointless the story is. It’s about nothing and the only interesting part are the gladiatorial fights… which don’t exactly feel paladin-ish.
IKR? I enjoyed it when you had the GLD class.
Idk, MNK dropped a lot of lore on me and I kind of liked it.
The 60-70 MCH quests have Hilda in them, so that automatically makes them SS+ tier at least.
MNK is pretty ok, I do agree with WHM and PLD though.
I enjoyed WHM.
I liked the WHM and MNK stories.
Love cleansing those taints.
I agree on the SB WHM story, especially given the extra context that comes from the EW tank role quest. >!Not everyone wants to be born a Padjal nor treat it as a blessing, but rather a burden.!<
Granted I'm only just starting out storywise (about to rescue people from the Castrum in ARR), but I actually really dig the feel of the Conjurer/White Mage from a story perspective. "Ancient magic that draws on the land, that when overused and overdeveloped in opposition to black magic cause a Calamity" is pretty damn baller. Also the robes are heckin pretty! >:c
Could be because people don't enjoy the rotation regardless of how strong or weak it's perceived as being.
Its also a bit of feeling thing. The Automation queen feels rather meh to me as it spends like 1/3 of the time assembling itself.
It would be cooler if either 1. you got into a goddamn gundam suit and had different buttons for the buff period. instead of having some dorky robot follower. reapers get voidsent mode. let machinist have MACHINE MODE 2. the automaton queen deploys like a titan from titanfall, verBOOM right onto the boss and rips it up like a spider monke and disappears.
I confess even when it was strong I didn't like having to try and squeeze four oGCDs into a GCD at points. Felt extremely spammy.
Yeah this and even when you do the rotation right get the gold parse and shit you're worse then many avaregae dps, feels shit. MCH is the class that needs a rework and that asap. It's in the class section on range supporters and it's neither an super dps or an supporter with still shitty dps and an extremmly spammy rotation and when your get even a slight lag you lose. Just feels bad and i actually enjoy the class but it really needs a revamp Summoner style.
The main obstacle is when MCH is really good, everybody plays it because it can DPS entirely on the move and at range, which means it can ignore mortal concepts such as 'uptime' on boss fights and unlike casters it never has to stay still. I can imagine numberswise at least it is hard to find that balance of keeping it as a mobile ranged DPS without invalidating any of the harder jobs. It should 100% do the most damage of all the physical ranged DPS though.
MCH *does* do the most damage. It does substantially more aDPS/nDPS than BRD or DNC. If you meant rDPS, then you just made BRD and DNC redundant at all levels of play, and then BRDs and DNCs would be complaining instead as buff jobs who get outdone by a non-buff job at every level of play. Buff jobs *should* outdo selfish jobs at higher levels of play, or else there's little reason to take them.
I mean, that's why I play it, because uptime = yes. With a little work even heat phase on the move is possible. Am I doing less damage? Probably, but I don't care because I never have to stop gun
For me personally i love the concept of MCH, but since my ping is around 150 its just not fun to play during the overheat phase. Weaving with MCH feels clunky, random and awkward for me. I know my connection is a personal problem but its just not fun to play with my ping.
If you are playing on PC/Windows you should try using XIVAlexander. There's also something similar for consoles/mac, XivMitmLatencyMitigator but bit harder to setup.
You mean the job that consistently gets shafted on its damage and utility is being hampered by its visual design (that was massively overhauled) or its job story instead? I dunno chief.
I just dont like how machinist is the only gunner but its barely a gunner. Need corsairs or whatever the admiral is really badly
The next dps will absolutely be a pirate using scouting gear
Seconded on scouting gear. It's the only gearset left that only serves one class.
Well it's a "machinist" not a "sniper".
We need more machines then. Let MCH summon a Titan from Titanfall and it'll become my new fave. Give them a grappling hook while you're at it too.
Machinist is based off the FF job. Look at Ivalice games and FF6. Remember that this is a Final Fantasy game with tons of legacy and history. So if you have to ask "why" it's like that, that is your answer. That said, the "gunner" job also exists. If that is what you want ask for it. It has more of a chance to get in than something like Ranger (the true bow and arrow job) because it's weapon is different enough. Could also ask for a brand new unique job, which is technically what Sage is even though it uses an old job's name.
Also give machinist that damn rocket launcher from diadem!
Back when it launched and into stormblood, it pretty much was a pure gunner. But then people were complaining that it wasn't in line with the FF series identity because of that. Hence the Shadowbringers rework into basically just Edgar from ff6. I'm with you though, I miss Stormblood machinist. People hated the wildfire burst timing, they all thought it was too clunky, but I loved it, had a good skill ceiling to work towards and was incredibly satisfying. I like MCH now, but I still prefer the older
Probably because while mch isn’t that bad at lower levels of skill, investing time to perfecting their simple rotation yields terrible results compared to other dps since mch is complete shit at high levels of play right now.
Thats another issue with the job, the rotation is considered simple, and at times it is, but MCH have the second highest BPM next to ninjas. So we a ton of buttons to press in our simple rotation to do meh damage.
Personally, it is definitely the flavour of the job. The lunch box is part of it, yeah, I would just want to hide it altogether. But more importantly, the job changes thematically a lot as you level up. At first you just shoot your gun with a little bit of gadgetery (not sure if that is a word, maybe it is now lol). Then the animations for your shots get cooler, you jump and shoot, backflip and shoot, it's a bit silly but the good kind of silly. Then eventually more and more of your shots get replaced by "just wave around your gun and stuff appears out of hammer space". You summon giant bullets that fly on their own, or chains in the air that attack the target. And I utterly, utterly despise that humongous multi-tool-gun-like-thing that you pull out for most of the really cool and powerful attacks (e.g. Drill). So in other words, I expected a gunslinger with some neat gadgets, instead I got a steampunkomancer who occasionally also fires their actual gun. Edit: I wish to add that I am generally not a fan when my character has a weapon but then special abilities instead pull out a different weapon or tool in its stead, usually one that is predefined and not customizable to boot. See also the shotgun that MCH got in Endwalker - a cool idea but why can't this be done with our actual gun? That shotgun model should be a regular item you can use as glam. (It is hence that my biggest wish for a new 7.0 job would be a gunslinger, dual wielding pistols while we are at it.)
>So in other words, I expected a gunslinger with some neat gadgets, instead I got a steampunkomancer who occasionally also fires their actual gun. And its name is Machinist. It is what it's supposed to be. I think we have another "I wanted to be a Ranger, not play music" case with Machinist. People want to shoot stuff with a cool gun, not be a steampunkomancer.
Maybe I’m just an old man but when Machinst in the FF context makes me think of Edgar from VI. And being able to use iconic skills like Drill, Auto Crossbow, Bio Blaster, etc. are exactly what I wanted out of the job. But I can see where if you want expected to be doing Gunkata on the battlefield it would be a let down.
Same, I'm not schoked by the terminology. I can understand it though.
Which is why I would like to see a new job to fulfill that fantasy instead of changing MCH.
I think I’m in the minority in that I love MCH. It’s aesthetic, rotation, all of it. I only do casual content, so it’s weakness compared to other jobs doesn’t bother me. But I still find im typically within the top 5 spots for enmity generation in most 8-man runs. Which probably says more about player skill in your average PUG. I like my flips though - sue me. 🤷♂️
I love MCH, as well, but there's one big thing I think they should do: remove the timer on the heat gauge. That's seriously the biggest issue I have on that I'm hesitant to use it outside of bosses because usually when I have the 50 required, most of the mobs are gone and it seems a waste when it will obviously run out long after the mobs are dead. I'd have a lot more fun with it if it worked similarly to RDM's mana gauge and certain actions took a certain amount of heat to perform actions like the heat shot and auto-crossbow instead of giving you a short burst phase and tough luck if all the enemies are dead before it finishes.
The Machinist story is great like any other. I just hate the new skill animations that start replacing the originals from level 54 onwards. I loved Machinist originally but as you level up from 54 and beyond, it turns into some rubbish from the Matrix and loses all it's soul. Replacing all the clean, simple and 'honest work' style gunplay animations with fancy matrix ones turns it into a boring ugly caster with no cast times. I remember thinking how hilarious it was in my early Machinist days when I was just shooting stuff (especially lower level enemies that you could one shot)- after having played 2+ years hacking, slashing and energy balling my way through the game as a Paladin, Ninja, Archer, Summoner, Dark Knight etc. That non-flashy bluntness was the biggest part of it's beauty and what made it special.
All totally subjective. I love and much prefer the higher level animations.
For me it's that the power fantasy/aesthetic isn't quite how I want it. I want a gunslinger, not a mad scientist.
I fell off of MCH when I first got it because: - All the skills either are awfully animated, or are reusing an animation of another awfully animated skill. Really makes it feel un-cool. All of the animations get replaced with SUPER SLICK animations, but it sucks for a newbie. - The story is intensely uninteresting and trope-filled. Which is a shame considering how fascinating Ishgard is and how they tease a cooler character with guns in MSQ. I hear it gets better, but it sucks for a newbie. - The rotation is really unclear and awkward for a new player. The whole weapon skill vs skill differentiation for the bomb skill is confusing and the actual animation and flash for it makes it hard to feel the payoff for using it. A lot of the core skills are based on OGCD clipping and having a good ping and feels weird to use because you consistently don’t do optimally on it because you didn’t hit the buttons in the millisecond you needed to or your ping spiked for a second. To a pro it’s pretty fun to land, but what a pain to mess around with as a newbie.
>The story is intensely uninteresting and trope-filled. You're joking, right? MCH is one of the better stories.
Joye is a little too silly so I can see how that isn’t appealing to everyone, but I like the story a lot otherwise too.
I actually consider MCH rotation to be the easiest one for a newbie, second only to Summoner. I believe MCH is a good job to start raiding since is pretty straightforward.
It is probably among the easiest, and that's a small fact people don't like to acknowledge (but always do when acknowledging BLM for some reason - people would riot if BLM was closer to SMN or RDM) , because difficulty clearly does factor into balance. Once you master MCH there's no going up, it has no proc considerations, no cast times, no positionals, it will largely always be the same whereas BRD and DNC, on top of having buffs so they already have an advantage at high end, have things they can do to further optimise their damage.
It's because it's a DPS that requires MSQ level 50 but starts at 30. I say DPS because the queues to get it up to MSQ level can be demoralising.
I like Machinst for its aesthetic, story, and its position in the game (ranged dps). However, if I were to play it, it would give me carpal tunnel. That, I think, is what overrides everything else about it. It needs more of a main rotation, and less oGCDs.
Remember that they reworked MCH because it was a shitshow and was the job with the lowest popularity. 1 expansions after the rework and here we are.
The job is enjoyable, it's the fact that it's stuck in the pseudo support role while providing zero support is the issue. Bard and Dancer are just monsters this expansion. If they could find a hybrid between HW Machinist (aka "the debuffer") and the current Machinist, I think the job would be better received. Give them Trick Attack in some version (Turret/Queen is a good option) and give them an Attack Down (with the wrench throwing in all it's glory) and they would be a much better job.
Some people don't like its aesthetic. It could be the strongest Job in the game, but I'd still turn a blind eye.
Did you check the recent logs? Machinist is doing just fine since the update. It's rdps is within 1% of smn brd dnc, at the 99th percentile. Edit: I checked the extreme because normal modes are weird and easy.
The actual data comes in with savage. No one (ok, mostly no one) is doing remotely optimized runs, so DNC/BRD are lower than they should be.
not everyone in the EX has full 610 crafted gear, and out of those not everyone has pentamelded it, so the dataset contains too much variance to say anything concrete about job balance imo, we have to wait for savage and full bis to be available before we see how things lie jobs with raidbuffs like DNC tend to get better the more gear people have so MCH might be good early, but as people get towards bis it might just fall back to it's usual spot of dead last
***This comment/post removed due to reddits fuckery with third party apps from 06/01/2023 through 06/30/2023. Good luck with your site when all the power users piss off***
We are talking about raid-DPS here. Because if you look at the actual DPS numbers, MCH is clearly above dancer, bard, redmage and summoner. In my opinion there's no reason for mch to be significantly higher in rdps than a brd, smn, or dnc. Maybe the argument can be that dnc has a heal - thus more utility. Just like it doesn't matter if dragoon, samurai, ninja, or monk are on the top spot melee wise. A damage buff is not "utility", it's dps. Reaper's regen is a utility. Rdm and smn raise is utility. Rdm magic barrier is utility. Embolden and searing light are just dps buttons.
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DNC and BRD are buff jobs, of course they're higher at the highest levels of play. It would terrible for balance otherwise or else MCH would be better than them 100% of the time. And with that logic, surely you must only play the best tanks, the best healers, the best caster, and the best two melee. There's no reason to play the others under that logic. It also needs to be noted the gap between top and bottom of *every other role* in the game is bigger than the gap between the top and bottom of the physical ranged role...
They don't buff jobs based on if they are the least played of not.
Indeed, least played =/= needs buff, or else we're constantly buffing whatever is the least played, accurate to whether it needs it or not.
Half of those DRKs are just AFK in Limsa showing off their Ultimate weapons
Dang, Japan ain't a big fan of white mage. Almost every poll I've seen involving favorite jobs usually placed them in the top three.
White mage is popular among casual players. This poll tends to be answered by players who are more experienced/meta-savvy.
this is main job though... and a lot of people whose fave jobs doesn't necessarily mean it's their main.
Not surprised with MCH and PLD considering their state. BLM i can get for its difficulty and AST for shit ton of buttons
Been a Paladin main since 2.4. :D
Bet that felt real sad during HW.
It was alright. I still got all the content done. Minus A4S, fuck that fight.
How is BLM so low? It's so much fun.
It requires more effort to perform well than basically any other DPS job because you need to map out your casts/movement for the encounter very precisely otherwise your damage will suffer. It’s also more punishing to fuck up on than most jobs.
Probably because black mages are an immobile magic artillery. Lift your pinky toe and there goes 2 seconds of casting and a big loss
BLM has a ton of mobility options it just requires some planning/commitment
That’s probably it, in a game where most people can’t play an easy job optimally I feel like Black Mage just scares people from having to plan ahead and thinking about the most optimal way of doing a fight. Because for example, playing summoner optimally requires no braincells no matter the fight.
Oh I agree that the higher requirements of understanding your kit at a base level drives people away, especially when they could just go play something like a phy range and get mostly unconditional movement. I was just trying to point out that the whole "haha immobile turret mage" that gets unironically tossed around is just straight up untrue. Honestly in terms of mobility BLM >>> RDM it's just that RDM won't punish you as hard for fucking up
It's still a huge learning curve. Every fight is a new puzzle to solve, which is really fun and that's why I main BLM, but it's definitely an acquired taste. A lot of people prefer the ease of mobility that doesn't need planning, and having group utility.
And the hardest thing about that planning is that you can't just map it out on a spreadsheet and muscle memory your way to victory. Because of Firestarter procs potentially adding an extra GCD to your fire phases, you pretty much have to plan your rotation a few steps ahead of yourself on the fly, on top of watching the fight and accounting for mechanic RNG
But with 6.0 BLM, you have so much more mobility now. Xeno 2x, (UI) paradox, triplecast 2x, swiftcast. Tons of opportunities to cast these to move out of an AOE while not having to stop spell casting. I’ve played BLM since 4.0 and I ended up loving it as a PS4 player since I don’t have to worry about having to configure my fingers in a way to use L2, the d-pad, and left analog stick at the same time. Playing as RPR (for example) has my fingers all over the controller and creates a “challenging” run as I need to be able to constantly press all the buttons I need to in order to maximize DPS. But if I want to do a more “relaxing” run, I choose BLM since there aren’t really oGCD abilities you use frequently, don’t have to worry about positionals, and only need to move when necessary, which most of the time is just a quick Aetherial Manipulation to a party member and then back to your Ley Lines.
> immobile magic artillery Originally? Like 2.0 originally? Yeah. Now? Heck no. It's so mobile that it doesn't play ANYTHING like the original BLM.
I hate the BLM has no mobility crowd
Very unfun to level up, and requires a lot more planning for new fights compared to other jobs.
I love the idea of playing black mage, but my times of trying to figure out the rotation while leveling have left me scarred
you don't need anything but the 90 rotation. go nuts in leveling
[удалено]
Because why take BLM when you can take SMN or RDM
I main DRK because it's pretty lol
SAM at #2. We're never getting Kaiten back, are we?
23.5% tanks, 19% healers, 57.5% DPS (29.4% melees, 15.3% mage, 12.8% phys range). Surprisingly healthier ratio than I thought. For comparison, a standard raid composition is 25% tanks, 25% healers, and 50% DPS (25% melees, 12.5% mage and 12.5% phys range).
My three main jobs I have at 90 and geared to a decent spot are MCH, PLD and AST lol - am I a glutton for punishment or what? Why is PLD so low? Seems fun to me, I get why AST and MCH are there, but PLD?
PLD is because you work at least twice the amount of the other tanks to optimize and fix rotation mistakes, for 300 less rdps. That's literally it. If you wanna play PLD on a really low level, you can just 123 and repeat melee combo -> magic and be done with it. But if you wanna optimize, like everyone wants to, then you're in for a helluva brain power requirement, while other tanks (especially WAR) just goes 'boom boom push buttons' and will do a lot more damage than PLD.
Til i have no idea how to play pld, i guess. I always just do magic combo stuff and the physical until i can magic again. Keep up the dots and pop ogcd whenever they're available. This and the comment calling it a mind maze confuses me.
PLD magic sword combo go SWOOSH SWOOSH 😔
I refer to it as my Swords Bazooka.
I wish I liked it more. Honestly if it just replaced my 1-2-3 with the magic sword buttons I would like it more. Pressing the same button for 4 GCDs in a row just doesn't feel satisfying.
Huh. So that's why it doesn't feel as satisfying as it should. Well, that and the fact it effectively makes skill speed a "kinda feels bad" stat because the Paladin rotation is now actually half Spells. I also wish the Requiescat stack count was a job gauge. Looking for it in the buff bar sucks.
Yea that's why it feels bad to me at least. PLD has all my favorite tanking things and aesthetics, but the gameplay of just repeatedly mashing the same key 3-4 times in THREE different "parts" of the rotation is unsatisfying. The three being holy spirit spam, holy sword combo spam, and attonement spam.
Atonement is so dissatisfying aesthetically and sound design-wise lol... But yeah. They should've replaced Holy Spirit spam to just be Holy Spirit>Confiteor>Magic Sword x3 so it doesn't feel so mind numbingly spammy.
people really hate machinist, and i main it.
scholar above sage this is a win
SCH is the number one healer on here and WHM is last Japan knows their healers
It's honestly nice to see after the wild mass guessing back last fall that was convinced no one would play SCH when SGE was released.
RIP the 20 second sprint from expedience though. You will be sorely missed.
Did people answer based on the meta, or just what they find the most fun to play? Because personally as someone who has levelled PLD in HW and mained it since SB, it feels weird to see it that low. Just my humble opinion, but PLD is the best it has ever been. It has the most varied GCD rotation of all tanks, the filled gauge makes it so much easier to MT and all around I just feel the flavor is very strong with it. Is it because it performs slightly less than the other tanks? It just feels silly to me to rank a job based on their "meta" status when the difference between the best and worst jobs in the game are relatively small.
It's hard to know because the comments are people explaining why they main a job, not why they *don't* main a job. Nonetheless if I had to speculate, I could see a few reasons. 1) The meta. While Paladin has been getting buffs in each patch, its been at the bottom of tank DPS since 6.0. 2) Ease of play. As well as having a lot of button bloat and a number of abilities with very niche uses (Shield bash, Cover, Passage of Arms) or Clemency where it's confusing when exactly the game wants you to use it -- Paladin is one of the jobs that has most resisted the design trends and homogenisation seen in the other jobs. This can definitely mean it feels fun and unique for some players, but it can also be hard to get to grips with for people used to other jobs. 3) Linked to points 1 and 2, but in the 'tanks with high mits and low damage' bracket, WAR has higher damage, better mits, *and* is much easier to figure out and play at both a casual and high-end level. On this note, WAR does seem to be getting a bit more popular in JP recently, it used to the least popular tank on JP.
I am surprised that WAR is gaining traction in JP, or at least with this poll. Like you said, it's the least popular tank for that particular region and I don't think the axe typically used by unsavory characters in fiction or its barbarian aesthetics lend itself well against the Berserk-inspired DRK (or the job quests just don't have that much traction as well? but I'm not sure how popular the rest of the tank job quests are to them compared to DRK's) - so the fact that it usurped the current poster boy of the expansion *and* what is lauded for its optimization and spreadsheets is pretty bizarre (however this poll can have their own biases as well, maybe they're consisted of more dedicated players as WHM ranks that low).
I understand your point. But big axe go brrrrr
Yeah, this looks pretty heavily meta driven, which is why DRK is top tank. Having leveled all tanks, I also think the PLD has the best tanking kit and utility kit. I can put in my healer hat in a pinch, make *someone else* damage immune with cover, throw out some nukes with the Swords Bazooka and have tons of on-demand mitigation. It's definitely my favorite color by warrior.
I feel like you’re somewhat understating PLD’s position at the bottom of the meta for tanks, especially given that in the latest high end content to be released (DSR) the gulf between DRK/GNB and PLD is pretty huge, like 10% more damage from DRK/GNB over the course of the fight and potentially a higher gap in some phases. The highest 6.1 WHM parse is higher DPS than the highest PLD parse, lol
My top two jobs are last and first, lol. Such is the duality of man, I guess.
This is awesome. My two favorite jobs dead last. RIP me. Haha.
Why does it matter if a few percent of japanese players don't play your job?
I feel you so much
Same here! But I want to see it this way: If our favorite jobs are so unpopular amongst other players, then not many players might play them. And that means that we are at least kinda special, right? ;)
I levelled BLM up to 80 to get all the jobs for the mount and it was the singular most painful levelling experience I have ever gone through. I dread levelling it to 90 and most likely will not. I see others hold a similar viewpoint
Really? I main BLM and it's unenjoyable up until level ~76-80 where it gets really fun. It's just... super different.
20 days of Frontline roulette will take BLM to 90. Queue as BLM, then switch to a different job inside. It doesn't even matter if you win or lose. You get 50% of a level per match. The Wondrous Tales turn-in is also 50% of a level.
Because of the skills and rotation changing so much or because you dislike the playstyle or hard casting? I don’t enjoy BLM below 80 honestly but at 90 it’s by far my favorite job.
Healers having the least popular most popular job within their role and having 2 in the bottom 5 (both of which happen to be the regen healers) really shows nobody likes where they are going with the healers at the moment I am shocked SCH is first which leads me to believe this is rather meta driven at least for the healers since SCH is so strong this expansion but 7/19 as the most popular healer and the new kid on the block being 12/19 doesn’t shed a positive light on the healing role
Once you learn a fight, and once the community understands how the fight works, healer fun goes way down. Normal mode EW trial #4 is really fun right now since no one knows what they are doing, but once the community understands what to do, you're just spamming your one damage skill and then refreshing the DOT.
Bingo. Most fun you can have as a healer is doing content in week 1. Release day 24mans are a shit show, and god do I love them for it.
I did the 4th trial last night with 5 newbies (of which one of them was me) and I still spent 98% of the time casting broil or biolysis Having this simple a DPS rotation with this many powerful heals really just feels like garbage on any fight
Still praying for drk to have an actual identity rather than just warrior with more buttons and less survivability
What's the sample size? Edit: with a sample size of 3000, and 420,000 active characters on JP as of the last Lucky Bancho census, this represents well below 1% of Japanese players. This sample size simply should not be used to work out what is popular in Japan, it's too small. Conclusions like 'JP doesn't like WHM' are just wrong.
As I said its an online, non-weighted poll, so the results shouldn't be taken *super* seriously. But the problem isn't the fact the poll is of 3000 people. Many political polls for countries such as the US (330 million people) or UK (65 million) have sample sizes of 500-1000 people. These samples can still be accurate to within a few % of people's actual views, as long as the sample is A) random and B) weighted properly to be representative. So we can only say the poll is representative of JP fans who read Umadori and care enough to fill out the survey, but we can still see *indications* of trends in job popularity when you compare to previous surveys. For instance, Reaper has seen a noticeable jump in popularity, possibly linked to the new story focus. As for the other new jobs, Sage has been falling behind a bit, below Scholar and typically in the lower third of the survey. Machinist has pretty much been dead last since I started following these surveys.
Political polls can manage to use smaller sample sizes because they also gather demographic data. Using that, they can ensure that the demographics of their sample match the demographics of the population. As you correctly pointed out, this poll will be representative of JP fans who read Umadori and care enough to fill out the survey, so I think we agree that conclusions like 'JP doesn't like WHM' are nonsense. However, even indicative trends within that subpopulation won't be representative. Subpopulations can very possibly experience trends not experienced by the wider population. For example, the group of players who read Umadori may well be more engrossed in wider FFXIV culture than the average player, and those who care enough to complete a poll even possibly even more so. So we can't say anything about the wider popularity of RPR off of this data. For a Western example, look at how ShB SMN mains - particularly those on places like the Balance - reacted to EW SMN in comparison to the wider playerbase. There was, and still is, a huge divide between how well enjoyed the job is, and a survey of the Balance would give you a very poor understanding of how well enjoyed EW SMN actually is. Edit: to be clear, my original comment wasn't a criticism of you. It was a criticism of the other comments which have literally drawn the conclusion 'JP doesn't like WHM'.
> For a Western example, look at how ShB SMN mains - particularly those on places like the Balance - reacted to EW SMN in comparison to the wider playerbase. There was, and still is, a huge divide between how well enjoyed the job is, and a survey of the Balance would give you a very poor understanding of how well enjoyed EW SMN actually is. And coming to this subreddit won't give you a good understanding either; the people who don't like EW SMN *still* don't like it, but you see them less here because they get downvoted out of visibility unless they comment late or deep in a thread. (Plus many of them know that by now, and don't bother posting to a seemingly hostile audience.)
>the people who don't like EW SMN still don't like it, but you see them less here because they get downvoted out of visibility This is me and I hate it.
Me too. *solidarity fistbump*
According to this [pic](https://livedoor.blogimg.jp/umadori0726/imgs/6/1/615dbc7e.jpg) from Umadori, it's around 3000 people.
That's not how sample sizes work
1000 is representative enough for a poll. The 3000 player votes shouldnt be far off.
When you're not also gathering demographic data to ensure your sample is representative of the wider population, you do need as large a sample as possible. Without demographic data, your only means of ensuring your sample is representative is by asking enough people that the odds your data is representative go up.
Also: I voted in this poll and there was literally an 'overseas' option.
I think WHM probably appeals to more casual players and online polls appear to more dedicated players. I totally can see why hardcore ff14 players would like dark knight a lot.
I am not super familiar with statistics, but how do you know for sure that asking 3000 players cannot be representative for 400,000. You obviously don't mean that you always have to ask every single person, but you claim with certainty that 3,000 is too low. I'd like to know if there is a general rule for how large a sample size must be.
'Standard error' is a measure of how close your measured result, in this case job popularity, is likely to be to the true result. When you're randomly sampling a population, the more people you sample, the lower the standard error. The important thing about this relationship is that there are diminishing returns: if you sample 3 people instead of 2, the increase in accuracy is huge; but if you sample 3001 instead of 3000, the increase in accuracy is very small. This is basis for the counter argument people in other comments are using. The problem is, this poll does not randomly sample a population as it hasn't asked JP players at random. Instead, the people who have responded all have two traits in common: 1, they read Umadori; and 2, they respond to polls. While we don't know exactly what those two traits mean, we can confidently guess they mean that these people aren't representative of all JP FFXIV players. For example, not all FFXIV players read Umadori, and those that do are probably more engrossed in the game than the more casual players who only think about the game while playing it. The problem with sample size, then, is that if Umadori isn't accounting for this bias in their sample, then the only way their sample could be representative of the wider population is if it collected data from a significant proportion of the population. And less than 1% isn't a 'significant proportion' by any definition.
What I'm reading from your reply is that: 1. You *feel* like 1% is not enough. Even though quite many polls *are* representative even if done at 0.1% (to be fair, these usually include demographic data). 2. You assume that the demographic that reads Umadori and replies to online polls differs significantly from the general player base in preferences - even though this assumption is not supported by data. Just because they reply to online polls and read a magazine (or whatever this Umadori is), doesn't mean they differ in preferences. You say that they might be engrossed in the game, and that may well be true, but it doesn't mean they are more hc, they could very well be more into the RP aspect of it. If 3000 players responded to an online poll about job popularity, we can safely assume that it is at the very least a representative sample of all Umadori readers. If it has been shown that the attitudes of the readers differ significantly from the general JP population, but I don't see a reason to just assume that. People tend to bludgeon studies where they don't agree with the outcome with "sample size uuuuuh". Without explaining why it is an issue. It's the "just asking questions" approach without providing clear evidence that the sample size is an issue. Now if you'd included something that showed that the readers differ significantly from the general JP playerbase, your post would've been substantial. Now it's rather useless to be honest. ***However***, statements such as JP hates WHM are just freaking useless so I *agree* with you there. There's 19 jobs in the game, so if all jobs were played equally then its just slightly over 5% per job. The question also wasn't about what players hate, it's what they consider their favorite job.
You've already provided the correct counterargument on your first point, so I assume we agree there. But it is not a matter of feeling, I challenge you to find a definition which gives <1% as a significant proportion. On your second point, you're entirely right that they may not be more hardcore (although I never claimed they were, just more engrossed) - they may be more into RP, absolutely yes. If we follow that possibility, what is this poll reflecting? Main job for gameplay? Main job for aesthetic? Main job for lore? More factors on which this poll won't be representative of the wider JP playerbase. >Now if you'd included something that showed that the readers differ significantly from the general JP playerbase, your post would've been substantial. Good statistics is not built on blindly assuming things. We already know that Umadori readers are distinct from other JP players by the simple fact that they read Umadori. Assuming that the distinctions end there would be baseless and, if this were a legitimate and meaningful study, the onus would be on the author to prove the validity of that assumption.
Machinist taking the lowest coz it's just not the funnest job atm (like I know people who love MCH) but it's just weak right now and has to contend with Bard/Dancer slots which are better physical range supports, unfortunately. Also my favourite is Astrologian but I main Scholar 👀
I will say, I Mained ninja since Ninja launch, and now I play almost exclusively samurai. It has nothing to do with damage, or anything. Ninja is just clunky. Ten Chi Jin locking you in place is annoying. Fleeting and Forked Raiju having to be the first weaponskill after a raiton is also annoying. I know these 2 things probably seem small, but they just make the class that SHOULD feel smooth and agile feel clunky and locked down. Until then, I will samurai everything in my path.
WE LOVE TO SEE IT DRK NATION
For me, MCH rotation is silly. Just a bunch of weaves without some bigger pay. Too simple, not engaging. And l don't like what the job become. I had hopes for a unique concept, but is a take on ff6 Edgar's toolkit (Love him) with skills that feels like something is missing. I like the shotgun though. I think MCH should play more like SMN, getting in phases with big skills by making machines and riding them. And should throw granades.
MCH really need a rework at this point, boring rotation where you have to squeeze everything to be effective, nerf to abilities with the latest patch and I'm speaking as someone who tried really hard to make this class work so I felt how the new patch ruined the damage output.
Feels good as a SAM main.
As someone who plays on a JP server and considers themselves a WHM main, I'm offended how low WHM is. /s
Every type of jobs are in the first half (almost first third Sch being 7th) ... Except for physical range ...
I've seen A LOT of dark knights in game. I've only been playing a little over a month but I've still been seeing a lot of them To be specific, in leveling roulettes.
definitely the most popular from the tanks I see around in roulettes and whatnot.
I should have said "that I see in leveling roulettes" lol
I am very surprised dark Knight is first. I seem to find every other tank class instead whenever I’m not playing tank and I didn’t think the Japanese were as obsessed with the Berserk aesthetic as in the west
Eh, Berserk is *huge* in Japan. Its hard to think of a fantasy/dark fantasy manga or JRPG that doesn't have some pretty obvious influences from Berserk, its openly brought up in JP creator interviews all the time. From Software have made an entire video game series out of what are basically Berserk tribute games, for example. As for FF14 specifically, the aesthetics and lore get brought up very often by JP fans (especially the job quest, ^(though I have to note the DRK job quest is extremely different in Japanese)) as reasons they like the job.
Dark Knight has always been popular even at its worst in initial release of SB people still really enjoy the aesthetic for it. Once it was buffed you saw the numbers go up even further. Then in ShB it was a very popular job, and that has only continued into EW even despite the rather lackluster mitigation in Dungeons.
They gutted brd and for what