Melee Range Abilities: And Why They Are Completely Useless

Perhaps due to the sheer frequency of downtime this tier, this has become increasingly more noticeable. I cannot count the number of times Piercing Talon or Throwing Dagger might be decent... except it's almost always a significant DPS loss. Why is that? Because under no circumstance should you ever break a combo even if it means standing there doing precisely nothing for several seconds. The sole exception is if you know your combo will break. Otherwise, it's a straight loss. As the title implies, this makes these abilities functionally worthless in virtually every scenario.

Therefore, I purpose a simple solution: they no longer break your combo. Admittedly, I think they also need a potency buff given all three are still incredibly weak, but even making them not interrupt your combo at least grants a use. I know this is hardly a game breaker by any means, it's just an annoyance of mine as a melee DPS, especially due to all the downtime we have this tier. Why even have the abilities when they're hardly worth the hot bar space?

And if such a change were implemented, let's give one to Monk.

Oh, you meant (range abilities) on (melee DDs).
I read the title as ((melee range) abilities).

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Oh, you meant (range abilities) on (melee DDs).
I read the title as ((melee range) abilities).

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Same tbh.

The ultimate goal of melee is to never break melee. That said, some strats of this tier's latter fights might end up forcing that, so I can see the merit in this suggestion. It has my support.

Apologies, but yes, I meant the range abilities on Melee DPS. I'd edit the title but they won't let me.

I like them because in POTD, you run to an enemy to attack them...before you can get your skill off, a mage or archer has pulled them and you are then too far away to attack....

To be fair, Monk once had the best ranged damage ability in the form of Meditation. At a minimum of 543 ePot per HW TFC, or 109 per Chakra, and each Chakra only half to two thirds a GCD, Meditation was worth upwards of 163 potency per GCD (though still low compared to the 295 effective ppgcd of HW True Strike), with the greatest ease of use (no combo dropping, finer global recast increments, and no target required), greatest synergy, unique rotational augmentation (use once at specific breakpoints per ToD-Demolish as not to waste a tick of Demolish, increasing its relative value to 223 ppgcd), and unique burst benefits.

Now Meditation is a joke. The kind you feel bad immediately after telling.

Honestly, though, I feel like all the melee need improvements: to not break combo, to integrate with combos, to have higher potency, or to have lower cost. Ideally, each should have their own unique benefit in that regard. I'd like to see Ninja highly able, and even encouraged, perhaps, to weave in their Throwing Daggers (and/or whatever other variants it may gain).

Most of the time I use them to finish off Opponents running away in PVP.
But I actually like the throwing ability of the SAM as a part of the "dash backwards, throw stuff, dash forward"-combo. It just feels nice pulling it off to avoid AOEs right around your target where you have to keep your distance anyway.

I think either a potency buff, or allowing you to continue your combo, would work well, but not both at the same time.

I always figured such abilities only existed for me to do ranged chain pulls when soloing in the open world. Just toss something out to a whole lot of enemies to make grouping them up easier.

Only use them in groups in places like deep dungeons or if there's something I want pulled that the tank didn't pull and I think I can get away with it (like some critter guarding a chest)...

I will agree that there could be some QoL changes to the ranged attacks to give them more universal use. But, to me, the only class it really feels underwhelming on is dragoon because of how their rotation is set up. Otherwise on ninja you can generally plan things out to end your combo at the start of the down time and easily spam out throwing daggers for easy potency w/o having to worry too much about running dry on tp. And samurai actually handles ranged attacks and down time quite well with their buff to enpi, short and manageable combos, and their ability to meditate for free kenki (they definitely do have tp issues though--especially with high sks builds). And I'm quite pleased with how monk is designed and with them having the ability to meditate or form shift instead of doing direct gcd attacks for damage. So I'm cool w/ them not having any form of ranged gcd.

But yeah, I like the idea. I just would not say that the ranged attacks are completely useless is all.

They aren't useless. They just fit into a very specific niche that you want avoid being placed on, but on occasion they're the only thing you can use. Their damage can't be too high or they start interfering on how effective they'd be over combos.

MNK is a special case while instead of having one you get Form Shift and Meditation which lets you prepare a stronger burst when you engage back at the boss, its probably part of XIV MNK concept to never gain a ranged Weaponskill. (Yes I know they have Wave Fist in some other games of the franchise.)

If anything, would be cool if such skills didn't break combos. Specially for SAM, Enpi is actually really strong but you don't use because of combo breaking.

I think they should be changed to oGCDs.

For Dragoon, moving into 5.0, they could save 1 hotbar slot by making Piercing Talon a 20s recast ranged oGCD, with like 120 potency. Then, when under the effects of BoTD, it becomes GK, and under the effect of LoTD, becomes Nastrond. Those 3 are similar animations (hop and thrust/toss). Make them all share a recast. Basically turn Piercing Talon into a low level ST version of GK/Nastrond. They can do this for Throwing Dagger (make it share a recast with Ninjutsu) and make it an oGCD. This way, PT is a low level GK for Lancer and TD is a low level Fuma Shuriken for Rogue.

I like to use them to pull a single mob out of a pack. Helpful in Eureka, and also the overworld when you're under level and don't want to get overrun. Though sometimes it is fun to run around on NIN throwing daggers at stuff.

Truthfully having them not break combos would be a fantastic idea. Because I honestly forgot most of these skills even exist.. I use them so rarely that I don’t even think about them with the exception of Sam’s empi combo

understand the point
but its a bit funny of a thread for Dragoon to start when the Jobs built around ranged attacks

not break combo maybe even Extend your combo duration so it doesn't fall off would be nice nothing job gauge related
don't need to be strong just a QoL touch

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Originally Posted by zuzu-bq

MNK is a special case while instead of having one you get Form Shift and Meditation which lets you prepare a stronger burst when you engage back at the boss, its probably part of XIV MNK concept to never gain a ranged Weaponskill. (Yes I know they have Wave Fist in some other games of the franchise.)

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Theoretically, monk could get aura cannon as a skill that burns up your chakra stacks. Make it ranged line AOE that's lower potency than forbidden chakra so monks can use a skill if near capped on chakra stacks when mechanics require them to disengage while also adding the requested AOE version of a skill that uses up your chakra stacks for large pulls in dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

I think they should be changed to oGCDs.

For Dragoon, moving into 5.0, they could save 1 hotbar slot by making Piercing Talon a 20s recast ranged oGCD, with like 120 potency. Then, when under the effects of BoTD, it becomes GK, and under the effect of LoTD, becomes Nastrond. Those 3 are similar animations (hop and thrust/toss). Make them all share a recast. Basically turn Piercing Talon into a low level ST version of GK/Nastrond. They can do this for Throwing Dagger (make it share a recast with Ninjutsu) and make it an oGCD. This way, PT is a low level GK for Lancer and TD is a low level Fuma Shuriken for Rogue.

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That would provide no mitigation to forced downtime (due to range, not boss jump), either power creeping melee during full uptime fights or nerfing them where downtime is remotely present for no actual benefit...

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Originally Posted by zuzu-bq

MNK is a special case while instead of having one you get Form Shift and Meditation which lets you prepare a stronger burst when you engage back at the boss, its probably part of XIV MNK concept to never gain a ranged Weaponskill. (Yes I know they have Wave Fist in some other games of the franchise.)

If anything, would be cool if such skills didn't break combos. Specially for SAM, Enpi is actually really strong but you don't use because of combo breaking.

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Monk has a ranged skill. It's used from range when you cannot reach for standard melee attacks. Meditation. It was perhaps faintly overtuned at low SkS during HW relative to other melees' ranged skills and is now painfully undertuned, especially at higher SkS, but it's still a skill that causes potency without needing to be in melee range.

Enpi is also a decent tool already so long as you have the SkS to afford it. Yaten grants 520 potency at the cost of 10 Kenji (nominally 120 potency via Shinten) and a single GCD (an average of 377 potency normally over a Kasha/Gekko combo, less for Yukikaze, including Kenki). With the Sen included, it's situationally a loss, but where the Sen was already at risk -- a net increase 27 potency, though at massively increased TP cost (which can be of considerable concern to SKS SAMs). The issue is whether you'll gap your Shifu, Jinpu, or (if solo Slashing) Yukikaze or push MKSS or Hagakure behind. On the other hand, at other SkS breakpoints, it can actually keep your Hagakure properly timed by pushing back when you'd have to replace an already held Sen or Iajutsu a GCD before Hagakure comes off cooldown. It probably ought to be about 20 potency stronger to better allow it to offset Sen cost at lower SkS breakpoints, but it's situationally viable even without forced downtime; no other ranged option can say as much.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

Same tbh.

The ultimate goal of melee is to never break melee. That said, some strats of this tier's latter fights might end up forcing that, so I can see the merit in this suggestion. It has my support.

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Same here.

This is a pretty good idea, I support it.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

I think either a potency buff, or allowing you to continue your combo, would work well, but not both at the same time.

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To elaborate on this, if you buff them in both aspects, then they risk becoming a normal part of the rotation, instead of an emergency/situational skill that you ideally want to avoid, but is still useful for when you're not in melee range.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

To elaborate on this, if you buff them in both aspects, then they risk becoming a normal part of the rotation, instead of an emergency/situational skill that you ideally want to avoid, but is still useful for when you're not in melee range.

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Yeah, that was my main point. And it is why I think a simple removal of combo breaking should be enough. Maybe even tiny potency nerfs together with it.