Ranger wan-... NEEDS.

[noodles355]

I agree with a lot in this topic and would also like to add some views of my own. Firstly some comments on the above:

The OP is right on ranger damage. Ranger not only has the highest DMG weapons available in the game but it also uses the function fStr2, not fStr like melees, meaning that it only takes 2-3 Str to raise Base Damage by one, unlike the 4-6 Str it takes a melee. This pushes our Base Damage even higher. Ranger's Base Damage is the highest of any job in the game, yet our damage per hit does definitely not reflect this.

Furthermore, as stated above: Critical hits. Critical hits do very little to a ranged attack in comparison to a melee round. If you gave a melee job a 3.5ftp weaponskill with a 30% Agi mod that could critical hit, it would be a very strong weaponskill in abyssea. I would like to compare this WS with Blade: Hi, which is 4.0ftp 60% AGI. Blade: Hi has higher ftp and WSC mod, and also has a second hit. But then please appreciate that a Naked Blade: Hi will be with a weapon that has roughly 70 Base damage if you had around 80 Str naked and were using a 50ish Damage Katana. In comparison, the weaponskill I mention above would be with a 200 Base Damage weapon (150ish dmg gun+bullet, 80 Str naked). Blade: Hi is an incredibly strong weaponskill. That weaponskill I mention above is Heavy Shot. It is a very average weaponskill inside abyssea with Crit Rate/Crit Damage atmas.

This is an example of how Base Damage seems to mean very little, and how critical hits are so weak for ranger.

The 2nd serious point is as Mirabelle makes: Moving the enemy with attacks. There are two types of enmity, Volatile and Cumulative Enmity (VE and CE). With our damage output being lower than melees, we will have lower CE built up and will thus not be tanking the mob, however there is still the issue of VE. A strong weaponskill can generate enough VE to get the mob's attention even if you are low on it's hate list. This will cause the mob to move to you. What this means is either:
a) You move the mob, annoying all the melees and possibly causing them to miss WS through the mob being too far away.
b) You stay in melee distance to stop this problem, but then take a significant hit to your damage output.
This really needs to be addressed.

On a related note: The enmity genreated by Camoflage is too high. If you use Camoflage before a Barrage and land most of the hits, you will have generated less enmity than if you hadn't used camoflage. However if you use Camoflage and only land a few, or miss your barrage, then you've just generated needless extra enmity.

The third point I would like to make is about Ranger's defence. Or lack of defence.
Ranger has no native damage mitigation (Such as Thf and Nin's Evasion, Mnk and War's Counter, Sam's Seigan, Pld's Shield)
Ranger has no native self-healing (Such as Drg's Wyvern, Dnc's Sambers, Pld's Cures)
Ranger has no native enmity-shedding ability (Such as Drg's High and Super Jump, Blm's Enmity Douse)
On top of that it's selection of -Physical Damage Taken gear is pitifully low. We can't equip the Darksteel+1 armor set, the Gavial/Hydra set, the Arhat's Set and none of the Heavy Armor options (Valhalla, Grim, Heavy Gauntlets, etc). The only gear we have access to is the same "All Jobs" equipment that everyone else has access to too.

Furthermore, the way ranged attacks are calulated makes this a large problem, not just a mild-annoyance:
A Melee attack is calulated instantly at the start of the turn. This means anytime during their delay phase they can cast a spell, or use a JA or WS or item etc. Ranger can't. When you fire a shot, you first have Aiming delay, based off the delay of your gun/bow/xbox. The only way to interupt this delay is to move about, but even if you move about the cancelation of the shot is not instant, you still have to wait the same amount of time. After you fire your shot you then have a 2nd phase of delay where you can do nothing at all (The old: "You must wait longer to perform that action" notice. Essentially, once you start a shot, you are stuck shooting untill the shot has completely fired. During this time you can't do anything. If the enemy is attacking you it's very easy to take a lot of damage (especially from NMs) during this time. The only option you have is to throw on -PDT gear, but as I stated above, ranger has very limited access to -PDT gear.
To be honest, if that was a real situation and a monster was attacking me, I wouldn't just stand there and take a beating whilst doing nothing for 5 seconds. I'd stop aiming and try to defend myself! Would it be possible to interupt the aiming phase of a ranged attack, cancelling it, to use a JA or spell?

So ranger has no defence worth mentioning, but to be honest I can understand why: SE's original intent for this job was obviously as some sort of Glass Cannon. That would be fine if the Cannon part was true, but as this thread shows: it's just not. Ranger is more of a Glass Peashooter.

What other DD job in the game conciders Novia Earring as a worthwhile TP piece? What other DD in the game conciders a SJ purely for a 33% Enmity shedding ability? None. That's the state ranger is in now. Regarding enmity there is one thing oh so very very simple that SE could do. Simple and reasonable. Make Camoflage shed enmity. Dragoon can remove 100% of it's enmity every 3 minutes. Ranger has a MUCH bigger enmity problem than dragoon. Why can't Ranger do the same?

Re: Militis, please don't take this as an atatck, it's anything but that. You may feel on par with other DDs, but guess what? I've outdamaged many DDs on Bard before abyssea was released. Does that mean bard is a good melee job? No. Comparing yourself to random DDs is not an accurate way to measure your strength. You must either compare yourself to an equally geared and played job, or compare yourself to yourself on another job. On top of that you will need to parse the results. Eyeballing is also not an effective way to accurately deduce a job's DD potential.

[Rambus]

Furthermore, the way ranged attacks are calulated makes this a large problem, not just a mild-annoyance:
A Melee attack is calulated instantly at the start of the turn. This means anytime during their delay phase they can cast a spell, or use a JA or WS or item etc. Ranger can't. When you fire a shot, you first have Aiming delay, based off the delay of your gun/bow/xbox. The only way to interupt this delay is to move about, but even if you move about the cancelation of the shot is not instant, you still have to wait the same amount of time. After you fire your shot you then have a 2nd phase of delay where you can do nothing at all (The old: "You must wait longer to perform that action" notice. Essentially, once you start a shot, you are stuck shooting untill the shot has completely fired. During this time you can't do anything. If the enemy is attacking you it's very easy to take a lot of damage (especially from NMs) during this time. The only option you have is to throw on -PDT gear, but as I stated above, ranger has very limited access to -PDT gear.
To be honest, if that was a real situation and a monster was attacking me, I wouldn't just stand there and take a beating whilst doing nothing for 5 seconds. I'd stop aiming and try to defend myself! Would it be possible to interupt the aiming phase of a ranged attack, cancelling it, to use a JA or spell?

There are other things that makes that message pop up thats annoying. If you run around to stop a spell you still have that "You must wait longer to perform that action" you must /heal to stop that and the same holds true for range atttacks. Using items can cause a bigger then needed delay as well. It is just bad programing or ps2 limtations or something.

[Dekoda]

Ranger has no native self-healing (Such as Drg's Wyvern, Dnc's Sambers, Pld's Cures)

SE's gonna argue Bloody Bolts =/ Even though X-Bow is virtually obsolete.

Ranger has no native enmity-shedding ability (Such as Drg's High and Super Jump, Blm's Enmity Douse)
On top of that it's selection of -Physical Damage Taken gear is pitifully low. We can't equip the Darksteel+1 armor set, the Gavial/Hydra set, the Arhat's Set and none of the Heavy Armor options (Valhalla, Grim, Heavy Gauntlets, etc). The only gear we have access to is the same "All Jobs" equipment that everyone else has access to too.

I've been working on a PDT build for RNG, and it's kind of a start that they can equip both Terra's Staff AND a PDT Magian Bow/Gun. With PDT Rings, Twilight Torque, and Denali Wristbands (There's a few more 1%'ers, IIRC), PDT can get up there. It's still not anywhere near as easy to get as other jobs, though.

As far as enmity shedding in regards to Super Jump, I really really hope SE at LEAST lowers the level of Super Jump from 50 to 49 by the time the Lv.99 cap comes around.