They forgot Ranged Physical is a role in the game

It's completely unnecessary to give something like that to a DPS and half the time has no value because either no damage is going out, or you have more than enough to not need it. At least RDM can proc a dualcast off of their heal in downtime.

Not a big deal, yet can't help but think they could've given SMN more damage buttons to press rather than a heal that's very situational at best.

If it's situational then it's because healers (and tanks) already have way too much healing. If they don't, then it's actually great. There is always some form of damage to be healed even if it happens 10s after instead of instantly. If I'm playing DNC and want to instantly use Waltz, I can, but I can also wait 10s to do it for the same result unless more damage comes up, and then it's still a win either for Waltz or SMN healing. The real concern is whether this is actually needed to alleviate healing, or not, and I already know the answer.

This is exactly like dismantle. Dismantle used to be stellar in HW/SB because it wasn't already drowning in a sea of mitigators, but now everybody and their mothers have some. It's hardly impressive.

That was my point, yes. Curing Waltz has the same issue but with the added problem that you have to be stacked up for full effect which more and more often these days, we are not due to mechanics.

I consider those kinds of constraints actually good. Much like the limited range on healing before they demolished that too for 6.4 because yoshida forbids that people need to use their brains to position themselves properly and play around hurdles. If you remove stacking on Waltz, you essentially remove skill expression and any thought process behind using this skill optimally. Either way, all I'm saying is that mitigation on rphys is lost in a see of mitigation coming from everyone else, and healing is not required (even though Waltz is actually godly, just not needed). If healing was needed, even SMN could shine, even if not every 60s ever.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I consider those kinds of constraints actually good. Much like the limited range on healing before they demolished that too for 6.4 because yoshida forbids that people need to use their brains to position themselves properly and play around hurdles. If you remove stacking on Waltz, you essentially remove skill expression and any thought process behind using this skill optimally. Either way, all I'm saying is that mitigation on rphys is lost in a see of mitigation coming from everyone else, and healing is not required (even though Waltz is actually godly, just not needed). If healing was needed, even SMN could shine, even if not every 60s ever.

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Of all the forms of homogenization in the game, the mitigation homogenization is one of the weaker ones to bring up. But on the trash heap that is homogenization, it's truly icing. What I'd do to see Stormblood-era fight design to come back, and fight design like the more experimental Coils.

Hell, on the topic of the massive range increases on abilities, all the devs did was make the arenas massive and ruined caster gameplay by forcing nonstop jog-a-thons across gigantic maps in response to trying to destress healers by making it easier to heal with larger aoes. What was intended as QoL just accelerated homogenization in a different way. One of these days, the devs might realize they've painted themselves into an extremely tiny corner, and the solution is to dehomogenize fight mechanics design to make things that primarily target and challenge individual roles instead of all of them equally. It'd be nice to see rphys have mechanics like the original turn 7 cyclops again, only to then get a rest for an extended period of time while mechanics that specifically challenge other roles, like melee, happen. Only to cycle with things that are tough to solve for anyone with cast bars.

But, rphys get forgotten because the rphys tax is meaningless but still present, casters get turned into rphys, melee get coddled and do the most damage because every mechanic is designed to not be hard to them, and tanks all do the exact same tanking gameplay across all classes while healers all heal so functionally identically, they may as well be the same class for all practical purposes now.

Game truly is a mess.

Or they could give BRD, MCH, and maybe the future phys ranged walking casts like they have now in PVP, and bump up their firepower from there. Why change 10 dps jobs when you can just make changes to 2-?

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Originally Posted by Taranok

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Stormblood fight design was the basis for what we have now, with choreographed dance sequences following fixed timestamps and self-positioning bosses. It's a byproduct of a game-breaking mob movement glitch that had a fair bit of attention in late Heavensward.

Renauds weren't actually a Physical Ranged mechanic, when playing optimally. A lot of groups were using a SCH bait by the time Savage Second Coil rolled out. It's the same idea as the Gobwalker in A2S. It's generally more efficient to offload responsibility to supports wherever possible.

The primary issue with Physical Ranged is that it has been classically framed as a 'support DPS role' in a game that doesn't value support gameplay. And in the process of standardizing everything, Casters offer greater support functionality and more DPS while playing at a lower APM. People have retroactively tried to justify caster superiority based off of 'job difficulty', but casts always come at the expense of APM and mechanical difficulty. And the end result of these complaints is that SE has taken it to further simplify that fake 'cast-induced difficulty'. The only reason that there's finally a conversation around this is because PCT just exposed these gross discrepancies for all to see.

The solution to making Physical Ranged valued is to stop treating the role as inferior to Damage Casters. All ranged jobs offer varying degrees of utility. They all should do competitive damage. Eliminate the 'damage tiers' within ranged jobs, and you will have resolved the issue.

The SCH dealing with renalds in T7 or the PLD dealing with whatever it was called In O11 or the off tank dealing with the gorilla in A5 is all because they allow the supports to take the DPS role when they can easily code it as not working that way. It really wouldn’t be hard to make it so the renald can only be kited by a DPS. Or the O11 cheese strat goes through PLD’s invuln, they manage this already with UWU ifrit awakening where it’s handled by the ranged because there is nobody else in that phase who has the time and room to handle it

Mechanics can be assigned to be handled by phys ranged superior movement but they’ve got to stop allowing them to be cheesed by dumping them on the supports

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The primary issue with Physical Ranged is that it has been classically framed as a 'support DPS role' in a game that doesn't value support gameplay. And in the process of standardizing everything, Casters offer greater support functionality and more DPS while playing at a lower APM. People have retroactively tried to justify caster superiority based off of 'job difficulty', but casts always come at the expense of APM and mechanical difficulty. And the end result of these complaints is that SE has taken it to further simplify that fake 'cast-induced difficulty'. The only reason that there's finally a conversation around this is because PCT just exposed these gross discrepancies for all to see.

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Once again if this was a PCT problem why was I complaining about it in EW

What free movement? This is a game with incredibly scripted dance routines. Do you think Physical Ranged is running around randomly in circles between mechanics?

In Endwalker, the idea of a Damage Caster existing on a completely different tier from rest of the ranged jobs was just a job-specific quirk of BLM. Now that PCT also occupies the same DPS category while having an overabundance of utility, movement tools, and instant casts (the like of which would make a SMN blush), people are starting to question why that differential treatment exists within ranged jobs.

It isn't just the phys ranged that does Eruption baits in UWU, the magical ranged has to do them as well. So the ranged mechanic in the ultimate was designed to be resolved by any magical ranged dps, as well as magical ranged were given the tools to resolve that mechanic. Phys ranged design -- or lack of design, is for a game that does not exist.