So...is the Ranged Role gone? Are we in a Reverse HW?

This is a concern since Yoshida didn't even so much as mention Ranged in the Live Letter. The problem we're facing is being so weak that you can literally replace us with a BLM if they can perform high enough to get rid of 1% All Stats for damage(in Savage, not Ultimate). The issue arose in regard to SMN, but since they're nerfing its DoTs, we still are running the same problem unless they bother to properly upgrade Ranged's damage capacity to compensate for the 1k+ DPS/rDPS disparity based on the site that shall not be named.

We ran into the issue of the Ranged Role being taken over all Casters in Heavensward for close to the same reason, but with different applications:

1) Dragoon had Piercing Debuff that scaled at least 400 rDPS. This has been removed since Shadowbringers.

2) Ranged had a monopoly on utility, namely with MP/TP Recovery. This made progression smoother on top of their already strong DPS after being overtuned around 3.4. Those utilities were lessened when TP was no longer an issue in SB, and were removed in Shadowbringers.

But now, it's entirely different:

1) Due to the new damage formula that the development team implemented, DPS classes have gaps between each, and to try and restrict an entire role from locking out another, they implemented a 5% buff based on the roles that are in the party, 1% for each. This has failed as due to the new damage calculation, a high-end BLM can easily outdo any of the Ranged Role even in progression gear in all fights by at least 1,000-1,500 rDPS.

2) SMN's pet rework screwed up the difference between Ranged and Caster, as they now had on-demand Instant GCDs that were DPS Gains thanks to Egi Assault. The issue with this is that while Egi Assault has a cooldown, you have at least 4 charges in total(2 for Egi Assault I and II in total) to be able to use for mobility, damage, or any other reason. On top of that, with how often their Trances come up, they can be just about as mobile as any other Ranged job due to their nature.

In general, they should dismiss the "Mobility Clause" they've been using to justify Ranged's lower DPS alongside utility, but when another job has the same level of mobility as them it blurs the line quite a bit. What needs to happen for Ranged is to balance them to the point where their rDPS contribution closes the gap to around 500 rDPS, which will allow that 1% not to be the only reason to bring a Ranged job.

How it can be achieved?

MCH
- Increase the damage on MCH's burst and baseline to bring it up to a proper level. It's the only selfish job that has a 10% Mitigation and gets outdone by Caster contribution and yet it's not up there around where MNK and SAM are.

BRD
- This job needs some Potency fixes. DoTs in general need to be looked at as a whole so as to rid the game of the Reset issue that another thread mentioned since Iron Jaws is their strongest tool to snapshot buffs and extend their usefulness past the window they're supposed to. BRD's Lv 80 Skill needs to be stronger at base, given that their damage is already lower than all jobs.

DNC
- In a mostly fine spot. Needs some fixes in regards to rDPS contribution, given it's supposed to have the highest due to its powerful buffs it can throw around for the entire party and low pDPS. Also look at Improvisation, because it should only ever serve as a 10% Healing Buff and be on the same pace as SAM's Meditation. Starting at 3 and literally being heavily dependent on the party to stack in your circle is frustrating(especially with that one guy who always runs out of it to screw you out of 1 Esprit). Generally, the baseline for Improvisation should be 10 per tick regardless of party members since there's only 5 ticks in it.

While that may be the case, in theory, virtually no one drops a Range to run double Caster. In fact, scanning through every speedkill for each fight, I've seen maybe one or two without a Range. Simply put, it doesn't happen even at the hyper competitive level. Now I do agree, the Range DPS should be doing more damage overall. However, saying you'll be replaced just isn't happening.

As for how much they're buffed. You will never see Machinist pull Samurai numbers because of its free mobility. If it did, it renders Samurai pointless. Melee require specific strats catered to their uptime, cannot do certain mechanics for the same reason and are largely the least flexible role. Thus, they can never "dismiss" mobility outright. Even a flat 500 rDPS boast would go a long way, though, personally, I think the entire Range role should go the support route instead of trying to pigeonhole Machinist against Samurai and Black Mage. But that's just me.

The small buff that ranged got means double blm is no longer better than ditching a ranged, so ranged exist, but mostly for the 1% buff and LB generation

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

While that may be the case, in theory, virtually no one drops a Range to run double Caster. In fact, scanning through every speedkill for each fight, I've seen maybe one or two without a Range. Simply put, it doesn't happen even at the hyper competitive level. Now I do agree, the Range DPS should be doing more damage overall. However, saying you'll be replaced just isn't happening.

As for how much they're buffed. You will never see Machinist pull Samurai numbers because of its free mobility. If it did, it renders Samurai pointless. Melee require specific strats catered to their uptime, cannot do certain mechanics for the same reason and are largely the least flexible role. Thus, they can never "dismiss" mobility outright. Even a flat 500 rDPS boast would go a long way, though, personally, I think the entire Range role should go the support route instead of trying to pigeonhole Machinist against Samurai and Black Mage. But that's just me.

---

A sound argument, except for one thing: MCH has always been a selfish job and they only gave that 10% mitigation to it as a generalization from what BRD gave from Troubadour since Dismantle wasn't an equivalent of it in a few cases(Omega M/F, Guardian, Halicarnassus). The only support they provide is just that mitigation currently, and their top level of damage is at RDM's damage. It's a bit silly to think that a job that's focused on giant bursts windows just like SAM has only the equivalent of a RDM just stepping in with much more utility. Now, I'm not saying that MCH NEEDS to do SAM levels of damage. To be fair, the difference between MCH and MNK/SAM should be 300-400 at most so as MCH isn't encroaching on Melee DPS' weakness to mechanics. 500 if you want to push it just because of new Tactician.

Jobs like BRD/DNC that have job mechanics designed for supporting the party should go the support route so that their rDPS is measured in how they line up their buffs compared to their damage, which is usually on the low side due to increasing others' damage by a decent amount.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

Now, I'm not saying that MCH NEEDS to do SAM levels of damage. To be fair, the difference between MCH and MNK/SAM should be 300-400 at most so as MCH isn't encroaching on Melee DPS' weakness to mechanics. 500 if you want to push it just because of new Tactician.

---

even a 500rdps difference between MCH and SAM would just kill SAM, as the class is way, way, way more difficult to pull off, and peoples would just ditch sam because a machinist would be a much safer bet on every level, and would remove the need to adapt to uptime strat (seriously, have you seen the uptime strat for sam on just E4S ? You gotta dash on Titan's cart at the moment he pushes everybody, and the fight is full of stupid stuff like this just to be a tiny bit ahead of BLM).

Ranged cannot be that far ahead because it would just render every melee useless or would just mean you're hurting your team by having one. Just look TEA as an example, when peoples saw that most of the fight had double target, the first thing that became known was "you're throwing the run if you don't have a bard in your team. You need the double dot".
Just with this fight alone, bard went from bottom rdps class (so one that by following your logic nobody would want) to one of the most wanted class for the current high end content. And with the next Ifrit/Garuda fight you can bet that it will be exactly the same.

Iirc MCH had a vuln up debuff before, maybe finding a way to give it back would be better than just "increasing its dps to top-melee level". At least it doesn't make melees useless.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

A sound argument, except for one thing: MCH has always been a selfish job and they only gave that 10% mitigation to it as a generalization from what BRD gave from Troubadour since Dismantle wasn't an equivalent of it in a few cases(Omega M/F, Guardian, Halicarnassus). The only support they provide is just that mitigation currently, and their top level of damage is at RDM's damage. It's a bit silly to think that a job that's focused on giant bursts windows just like SAM has only the equivalent of a RDM just stepping in with much more utility. Now, I'm not saying that MCH NEEDS to do SAM levels of damage. To be fair, the difference between MCH and MNK/SAM should be 300-400 at most so as MCH isn't encroaching on Melee DPS' weakness to mechanics. 500 if you want to push it just because of new Tactician.

Jobs like BRD/DNC that have job mechanics designed for supporting the party should go the support route so that their rDPS is measured in how they line up their buffs compared to their damage, which is usually on the low side due to increasing others' damage by a decent amount.

---

Mch hasnt always been a selfish job, Hyper charge was a trick attack equivalent in SB and in hw in the no caster setup it was a very strong buff. Its selfish only identity is new to this expac

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eliadil

Iirc MCH had a vuln up debuff before, maybe finding a way to give it back would be better than just "increasing its dps to top-melee level". At least it doesn't make melees useless.

---

We live in a world where people are much more cognizant of how much rDPS a job is doing is the thing. The primary metric people are using is the raid contribution of each job instead of just the person damage. So if Machinist was given that buff and Bard and Dancer had their support buffed back up to that level, if they came within swinging distance of the melee we might still see double ranged comps rearing their heads again.

Maybe if they implemented multi-hit attacks, deathblows from Xenogears, situational skills, and crowd control abilities they could rebalance things. But, that also means that the personal skill floor will be raised higher in the developer's eyes. It would just be easier for them to implement everything if they just made a new game that would eliminate the spaghetti-code issue excuse...

TBH, just allowing crit to help with procs alongside the 35% proc-rate for BRD & DNC would definitly be like a total QoL improvement in terms of fun and RNG.
Oh, and totally make a six-to-eight-hit flamethrower drones for MCH, and outright replace the current action. It's the super obvious thing to implement...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eliadil

even a 500rdps difference between MCH and SAM would just kill SAM, as the class is way, way, way more difficult to pull off, and peoples would just ditch sam because a machinist would be a much safer bet on every level, and would remove the need to adapt to uptime strat (seriously, have you seen the uptime strat for sam on just E4S ? You gotta dash on Titan's cart at the moment he pushes everybody, and the fight is full of stupid stuff like this just to be a tiny bit ahead of BLM).

Ranged cannot be that far ahead because it would just render every melee useless or would just mean you're hurting your team by having one. Just look TEA as an example, when peoples saw that most of the fight had double target, the first thing that became known was "you're throwing the run if you don't have a bard in your team. You need the double dot".
Just with this fight alone, bard went from bottom rdps class (so one that by following your logic nobody would want) to one of the most wanted class for the current high end content. And with the next Ifrit/Garuda fight you can bet that it will be exactly the same.

Iirc MCH had a vuln up debuff before, maybe finding a way to give it back would be better than just "increasing its dps to top-melee level". At least it doesn't make melees useless.

---

??? no. if people want higher dps theyll choose sam regardless of safety or whatever. most groups honestly don't care since melee have been dealing with uptime since arr. if the melee has more than 1 brain cell mechanics are nothing to worry about like that


also bard wasnt immediately best dps ever in TEA because of double dot. wasn't world first done with a dancer?

Pretty sure the majority of progression teams will still be bard, summoner, dragoon, and something else.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by QooEr

??? no. if people want higher dps theyll choose sam regardless of safety or whatever. most groups honestly don't care since melee have been dealing with uptime since arr. if the melee has more than 1 brain cell mechanics are nothing to worry about like that


also bard wasnt immediately best dps ever in TEA because of double dot. wasn't world first done with a dancer?

---

You do realize there are fights where specific strats are needed for those mechanics, yes? The standard strat for O12S was brutal on melee yet very few groups wanted to adjust because the uptime version was much riskier. With M/F, you simply lost damage with zero way to mitigate it. Eden's Gate largely avoided melee downtime but that's one tier. If Machinist did capable damage to Samurai there is zero doubt PF would begin ostracizing it. They did with Ninja and Dancer during 5.0. Even statics were opting out of Ninja because it was objectively inferior by much a wide margin. And ask any Samurai main how Stormblood felt. Dragoon and Ninja dominated the melee scene simply because they were better at nearly everything.

And no. The WF group ran Bard.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

You do realize there are fights where specific strats are needed for those mechanics, yes? The standard strat for O12S was brutal on melee yet very few groups wanted to adjust because the uptime version was much riskier. With M/F, you simply lost damage with zero way to mitigate it. Eden's Gate largely avoided melee downtime but that's one tier. If Machinist did capable damage to Samurai there is zero doubt PF would begin ostracizing it. They did with Ninja and Dancer during 5.0. Even statics were opting out of Ninja because it was objectively inferior by much a wide margin. And ask any Samurai main how Stormblood felt. Dragoon and Ninja dominated the melee scene simply because they were better at nearly everything.

And no. The WF group ran Bard.

---

You're having me think : maybe they do plan in Verse fights so heavy on mechanics and movement it will bring melee and casters down by 1000 rDPS (and so on par with range).

Hence the absence of change on ranged's DPS. Cause yeah they're in the gutter for the first tier (1000-1500 behind)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Karshan

You're having me think : maybe they do plan in Verse fights so heavy on mechanics and movement it will bring melee and casters down by 1000 rDPS (and so on par with range).

Hence the absence of change on ranged's DPS. Cause yeah they're in the gutter for the first tier (1000-1500 behind)

---

And yet all speedkill parties include a ranged dps. Either they're wrong (unlikely), or people saying ranged suck are missing something.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eliadil

Just look TEA as an example, when peoples saw that most of the fight had double target, the first thing that became known was "you're throwing the run if you don't have a bard in your team. You need the double dot".
Just with this fight alone, bard went from bottom rdps class (so one that by following your logic nobody would want) to one of the most wanted class for the current high end content. And with the next Ifrit/Garuda fight you can bet that it will be exactly the same.

---

The TEA example is actually not quite accurate. While BRD is very strong in Living Liquid and Brute Justice/Cruise Chaser, its potency and overall contribution drops after those two phases. Enough that it isn’t even the best physical ranged choice when one considers the entire fight. DNC is actually the highest performing of the three, with BRD being second, and MCH being last. You wouldn’t throw a TEA run simply because you don’t have a BRD in your group.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Karshan

You're having me think : maybe they do plan in Verse fights so heavy on mechanics and movement it will bring melee and casters down by 1000 rDPS (and so on par with range).

Hence the absence of change on ranged's DPS. Cause yeah they're in the gutter for the first tier (1000-1500 behind)

---

I doubt that. It’s more likely that they stubbornly don’t see the physical ranged as an issue in terms of potency even though all three could stand to have a slight buff. The developers have long made it known that they don’t care about damage potential and potency to the extent the playerbase does.

They also just buffed all three in 5.1. I wasn’t expecting them to buff them again in 5.2. It’s likely that they want to see how the role fairs in Eden’s Verse before considering adjustments. I’m sort of on the fence about it, because, on one hand, I can see where the role needs some TLC; on the other, I don’t want panic buffs to happen, and for us to see the role become broken (hello, late HW).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Karshan

You're having me think : maybe they do plan in Verse fights so heavy on mechanics and movement it will bring melee and casters down by 1000 rDPS (and so on par with range).

Hence the absence of change on ranged's DPS. Cause yeah they're in the gutter for the first tier (1000-1500 behind)

---

And as Lastelli noted, you could count on one hand the amount of speed kills running double Caster in every single fight combined. This idea the Range are on the cusp of being replaced is simply a myth. It hasn't happened this entire tier including an Ultimate fight where Black Mage, and especially Summoner, were absolute monsters. Of course, I do still think the Range are doing less than they should but they aren't being excluded nor will they come 5.2.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

And as Lastelli noted, you could count on one hand the amount of speed kills running double Caster in every single fight combined. This idea the Range are on the cusp of being replaced is simply a myth. It hasn't happened this entire tier including an Ultimate fight where Black Mage, and especially Summoner, were absolute monsters. Of course, I do still think the Range are doing less than they should but they aren't being excluded nor will they come 5.2.

---

I reply to you but also Lastelli : nowhere did I say they were being replaced. I just said the second part of your post : they are behind. Not that they are left behind. Nuance.
But they're objectively behind rDPS wise for no specific / valuable reason.

I do not fear them being replaced. Like you both said, a quick look at comps and they're still there. It's just that it bothers me to see discrepancies when there are no valid reason for them to exist in the first place. Maybe I'm a maniac but when you see something uneven, you even it. Maybe it's just me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Karshan

I reply to you but also Lastelli : nowhere did I say they were being replaced. I just said the second part of your post : they are behind. Not that they are left behind. Nuance.
But they're objectively behind rDPS wise for no specific / valuable reason.

---

There are plenty of valid reasons:

1) access to the single most powerful damage mitigation tool available to a dps job;
2) total and unconditional mobility, which comes in handy to deal with some mechanics and to ease the burden on other less mobile party members;
3) simple rotations to learn and execute, with close to no punishment for mistakes (MCH and DNC are basically braindead and with BRD the worst thing that could happen is failing to refresh dots with iron jaws, not a big deal);
4) full uptime in any possible scenario.

The role bonus ensures that the marginal rdps contibution of a ranged physical job is more or less on par with the rdps of other melees and casters, so that having one and only one physical ranged dps is optimal.
This is how it should be, given the aforementioned strenghts of physical ranged jobs. Of course, it's not like they can't buff them a little, as long as they don't overdo it...but even now, ranged are ok. You still want one in you party.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lastelli

There are plenty of valid reasons:

1) access to the single most powerful damage mitigation tool available to a dps job;
2) total and unconditional mobility, which comes in handy to deal with some mechanics and to ease the burden on other less mobile party members;
3) simple rotations to learn and execute, with close to no punishment for mistakes (MCH and DNC are basically braindead and with BRD the worst thing that could happen is failing to refresh dots with iron jaws, not a big deal);
4) full uptime in any possible scenario.

The role bonus ensures that the marginal rdps contibution of a ranged physical job is more or less on par with the rdps of other melees and casters, so that having one and only one physical ranged dps is optimal.
This is how it should be, given the aforementioned strenghts of physical ranged jobs. Of course, it's not like they can't buff them a little, as long as they don't overdo it...but even now, ranged are ok. You still want one in you party.

---

1) But only one, since the rest is gone, and it is not so ground breaking either
2) very true (except when you're yourself out of range, but in that case the melee would be as well so fully agree).
3) I'm sorry, melee rotations are not a brain twister either... Don't make it look like ranged rota is a breathe in the park while monk or dragoon are complex cluster of what the fuckery...it is not true and they're pretty straightforward.
4) fully agree, although this reflects in rDPS measured by fflogs. If they didn't have that mobility, they'd be even lower. Already taken into account.

Doesn't equate 1500 rDPS (may I remind that rDPS is measured, not paper based, so all of this is taken into account ALREADY, and still they're far behind).

I think it has more to do with what you said in your last paragraph : the matter is not at all about not taking one, it is that SE fears we always take 2 like it was in heavensward. But there are 4 spots, 3 roles ; we'll always have to take 2 of one, and right now it's never gonna be range. Note how a lot less people question the 2 melee spots. I'm glad BLM i strong and they buffed SMN and RDM so that 2 melee can have a little competition with 2 caster.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Karshan

I think it has more to do with what you said in your last paragraph : the matter is not at all about not taking one, it is that SE fears we always take 2 like it was in heavensward. But there are 4 spots, 3 roles ; we'll always have to take 2 of one, and right now it's never gonna be range.

---

And that's clearly what the devs want. They're trying to enforce 4 melee-4 ranged as the standard comp, as it was in ARR. It's pretty obvious (notice how they're nerfing SMN, basically confirming that they don't want BLM+SMN to be meta). And this is the most logical comp as well, given the number of jobs for each role (and I'm positive we're getting another melee job in 6.0).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lastelli

And that's clearly what the devs want. They're trying to enforce 4 melee-4 ranged as the standard comp, as it was in ARR. It's pretty obvious (notice how they're nerfing SMN, basically confirming that they don't want BLM+SMN to be meta). And this is the most logical comp as well, given the number of jobs for each role (and I'm positive we're getting another melee job in 6.0).

---

I don't count tanks and healers but why not. Only DPS speaking however, there is a discrepancy.

I'm all for a new melee job to increase competition among the role, cause with a 2 melee comp you have currently a 50% chance to be chosen in a particular class, while range and caster only have a 33% chance as a specific class. Either improve individual odds for range/caster classes or reduce individual odds for melee is all I want.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Karshan

I don't count tanks and healers but why not. Only DPS speaking however, there is a discrepancy.

I'm all for a new melee job to increase competition among the role, cause with a 2 melee comp you have currently a 50% chance to be chosen in a particular class, while range and caster only have a 33% chance as a specific class. Either improve individual odds for range/caster classes or reduce individual odds for melee is all I want.

---

That's only one way to look at it though, and probably not the most relevant one, as people can easily level (and gear) 2 jobs that belong to the same role. This is especially true for physical ranged dps, since they mostly share the same BiS. In this sense, chosing to main and invest tomestones on a melee job is way more risky. A DRG cannot suddenly switch to MNK or NIN when it finally finds a party looking for a melee. So why should casters and ph. ranged be able to switch between jobs in their respective role end join any party and still be good? That would be way too convenient.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Karshan

1) But only one, since the rest is gone, and it is not so ground breaking either
2) very true (except when you're yourself out of range, but in that case the melee would be as well so fully agree).
3) I'm sorry, melee rotations are not a brain twister either... Don't make it look like ranged rota is a breathe in the park while monk or dragoon are complex cluster of what the fuckery...it is not true and they're pretty straightforward.
4) fully agree, although this reflects in rDPS measured by fflogs. If they didn't have that mobility, they'd be even lower. Already taken into account.

---

One thing you could possibly do is give the role action that reduces strenght/dex for ranged then, it gives them another damage reduction while not making them that OP (although seeing how it helps on TEA, I think it definitely would).
The issue with ranged is and will always be uptime, that is one thing clearly underestimated by the community, is how strong being free of range limitation and being able to move all the time is. I'm only talking about ranged physical here, not casters, as being a caster means that you have to watch for your GCDs. There is a reason that there is uptime strats made especially for melees and there isn't the same for ranged physical. this is purely the sam main speaking here, but missing even a single GCD has a bigger impact on my dps than forgetting to refresh a dot on bard. And missing a GCD on melee is way easier than ranged, as ranged is more about forgetting to press a button than just being out of range. (if you're out of range then everyone else is too basically)

Ranged, based on this, cannot mess their rotation because of the way a fight is made, opposed to melee. If you mess up your rotation on ranged, then you played poorly (pressed the wrong buttons) where with melee (and also casters) there is a bigger numbers of factor that can make you mess rotation. It's an easy concept of "high risk high reward" play. Increasing the offensive utility of ranged will not bring "balance" in any way. Like somebody else said earlier, two melees are a thing, two casters are too. It is a risk sure, but it has a decent damage reward. However, as soon as you make double ranged viable, then nobody in their right mind would ever take two melees or casters if you could achieve the same reward with less risk. Let's not forget Party Finder in Stormblood, where excluding Sam and Blm was a common thing because even tho they could bring decent damage (higher than the rest in fact) the risk was just too high to be "worth it" for pugs. Peoples will exactly follow the same mentality if you make double ranged viable. This we don't want to, because it will just kill the two other role outright.

I fully understand how uptime is important.

But you base all your reasoning on a "what if", I see fflogs : with all uptime impacts taken into account already (I insist, this is measured, in fight, with mechanics that force downplay on melees sometime), they are still far behind.

Again, I agree they shouldn't have the same pps output on paper, and for it to be leveled by fight design. But guess what : it is not leveled enough and even if a melee has 96% uptime and a ranged 100%, in current state the Sam will outdo a bard.

It's not a risk anymore when there are strategies build to take that into account and all people (melee, range, caster, helicopter...) manage 97%+ uptime

Now that SE has taken steps to contain certain 3rd party tools, I imagine some groups will opt to mark their bard instead and make them stand in key spots for mechanics like TEA trines.

So hey, they may not be able to dps, but at least ranged will have a niche in 5.2 as being a movable waymark

The reason why ranged isn't getting excluded from speed kills is because there are few if any serious competitive speed kill groups. Ultimate more or less replaced them as "something to do", and the payoffs for group coordination just get smaller and smaller as they nerf party buffs and utility tools, make no-buff jobs like Samurai top tier, continue to not challenge healing at all, etc.

So it feels less like a collaborative group activity where effort expended leads to noticeable improvements, and more like just doing some PF farm hoping for unusually good luck. And it's not like there's ever been a reward outside of sense of accomplishment, and groups that still want to do it might just speed run TEA, but you'd want the 1% vitality there.

The odds of a group being so motivated to competitively speed run Savage that they'd kick their ranged or tell them to learn BLM are just really slim for a bunch of unrelated reasons, regardless of what the numbers are on paper.

Ranged Role is not gone, but SE still see them as "Casters without Cast".

It's actually funny that they share their views about the RDM underperforming. Its buff should raise it around the NIN/DRG.

As Yoshi-P mentionned that "It's not fun to play efficiently", it actually gives the idea that they think Ranged Uptime is much higher than Melees, that melees waits 5 seconds between mechanics. On top of that, the job balance is actually a huge mess, the SMN situation proves it, SE ignored the fact that the job was doing so much damages 2 weeks before TEA release and did not nerfed it at TEA release, making it a valuable asset. During my TEA prog, we were able to skip the last tank buster & hand of pain consistantly (most groups with a SMN do it today I think?) and I'm sure if we replaced our SMN with a BLM, we could not skip it. That was saving a lot of mana, cooldowns and time over the progress.

As I said months ago, ranged role is still balanced as a support DPS with... No support. If all ranged had a Dismantle-like ability and a tiny refresh they would have been an incredible asset. Support is not always rDPS, it can be survival for the team and it often feels good to reduce incoming damages when I play tank. Survivability could be a good way to buff the Ranged Role.

Right now it really feels depressing to play ranged on EX/Savage with Pugs. All the ranged role brings is 1% stats and nothing else compared to the other DPS. No matter how hard you push, you could just play Melee and bring much more while doing less and this is my biggest concern.

With my static, ranged still feels like bringing nothing but uptime to the Melees or bait mechanics but at least the DPS is not an issue.

More DPS, more utility beyond the rDPS. Ranged DPS definitely needs something that makes them a valuable asset, because 10% every 120s ain't one.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CKNovel

With my static, ranged still feels like bringing nothing but uptime to the Melees or bait mechanics but at least the DPS is not an issue.

More DPS, more utility beyond the rDPS. Ranged DPS definitely needs something that makes them a valuable asset, because 10% every 120s ain't one.

---

My party doesn't have a SMN and we easily skip that last tankbuster.

Anyway, the fact that all parties still have one ranged after so long means that having one is optimal. I really don't see what the problem is. If they buffed ranged dps again they would just tune endgame content around the new potential dps, making the change neutral and, therefore, pointless. Are people really just sad to be at the bottom of the dps chart even if they're wanted in pretty much any party?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lastelli

Anyway, the fact that all parties still have one ranged after so long means that having one is optimal.

---

As per my prior comment few groups care are doing serious speedruns of Savage (the top Levi kill is 5.0 ffs) so looking at those charts doesn't necessarily tell you anything.

At the most charitable, you could say that having a Dancer is optimal by a mostly-slim margin at the top end with a group that's maximally stacking buffs. That's DNC-specific though. The other two ranged are getting blown out by DNC in speedkill contexts, then DNC falls back closer to them in less-ambitious groups.

I don't think SE can or should do much of anything, given the designs, about DNC outpacing the other ranged at the top top end. But they could afford to close the gap a little, especially as it relates to working around downtime which DNC is extra strong at.

As for the ranged being behind overall, obviously you'd rather have your game be more balanced instead of less balanced, so clear gaps like this should get some work. I don't think ranged should equal other roles, or else you'd hard lock double ranged (because why not take the mobility if everything else is equal). But they can be closer than they are.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lastelli

My party doesn't have a SMN and we easily skip that last tankbuster.

Anyway, the fact that all parties still have one ranged after so long means that having one is optimal. I really don't see what the problem is. If they buffed ranged dps again they would just tune endgame content around the new potential dps, making the change neutral and, therefore, pointless. Are people really just sad to be at the bottom of the dps chart even if they're wanted in pretty much any party?

---

A bit hasty in your reading, friend:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CKNovel

As I said months ago, ranged role is still balanced as a support DPS with... No support. If all ranged had a Dismantle-like ability and a tiny refresh they would have been an incredible asset. Support is not always rDPS, it can be survival for the team and it often feels good to reduce incoming damages when I play tank. Survivability could be a good way to buff the Ranged Role.

Right now it really feels depressing to play ranged on EX/Savage with Pugs. All the ranged role brings is 1% stats and nothing else compared to the other DPS. No matter how hard you push, you could just play Melee and bring much more while doing less and this is my biggest concern.

More DPS, more utility beyond the rDPS. Ranged DPS definitely needs something that makes them a valuable asset, because 10% every 120s ain't one.

---

Ranged lacks the utility they used to have.

Also, I'll point some flaws in your reasoning:
1) SE don't tune around the endgame, it was proved again and again and is the reason why ranged dps are lower.
2) If any change would be neutral, no one would mind if Casters are put behind and melee/ranged would deal more dps, right? Oh, that already happened...
3) Your point of view is limited to endgame and I assume Savage and Ultimate. There's dungeons and EX, despite how easy it is, it's much better if you can speed it up. EX is the same, it's often tried by casuals who don't mitigate, the more mitigation/utility around survival your job has, the better. Felt that when I would play tank in Hades EX. On top of that, there's also Relic based content that will come with 5.25
4) During 5.0 my comp was MNK/RDM/MCH/DNC, we had all the 1% from each role but due to our comp we had quite the handicap. But going Melee/2 Casters/1 Ranged brings no handicap despite the "mobility" they should be lacking. If a comp goes 2 ranged, they should be allowed to play 2 ranged without feeling a huge gap in DPS. The fact that Troubadour/Samba/Tactician don't stack also brings a new handicap.

As for the "sad" part, remember that the ranged spot only exist for the 1% stats. That's the sad part.

Don't think in "DPS" only, ranged jobs were just not stripped of their DPS, they also lost valuable utility. Overall, the ranged job lost so much that they bring little for the group and that's why there are so many complaint around the ranged role.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cetonis

As per my prior comment few groups care are doing serious speedruns of Savage (the top Levi kill is 5.0 ffs) so looking at those charts doesn't necessarily tell you anything.

---

That doesn't really matter, though. If having a ranged dps was a strictly inferior choice, by now we'd at the very least see a lot of no-ranged parties on fflogs. If virtually all parties do include a ranged, it's because people see value in them.

I'd go even further and say that if substituting the ranged with another caster or another melee was indifferent, then we'd see some parties with no ranged dps. But again, that's not the case.

Also, speedrunners did try different party comps before 5.2. Trust me, I checked fflogs rankings frequently back then. And even then, before the ranged were buffed, most comps included a DNC.
Someone did try triple melee comps in eden 2 and 3 and got good results...but at the end comps including a DNC were still on top by a few seconds (before the buff). The role buff is probably more powerful then people realize.

I do agree, however, that DNC is clearly superior to the other 2 ranged...to the point where it's stupidly close to melee dps in TEA, but that has more to do with how beneficial downtime is to DNC, given how perfectly everything lines up with quad step and devilment. They can't do anything to DNC to fix this...but what they can do is give the other 2 ranged some tools to capitalize on downtime. I thought they learned their lesson with ultimate coil and uwu (SMN was and still is op for a similar reason)...but I was probably wrong.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CKNovel

A bit hasty in your reading, friend:



Ranged lacks the utility they used to have.

Also, I'll point some flaws in your reasoning:
1) SE don't tune around the endgame, it was proved again and again and is the reason why ranged dps are lower.
2) If any change would be neutral, no one would mind if Casters are put behind and melee/ranged would deal more dps, right? Oh, that already happened...
3) Your point of view is limited to endgame and I assume Savage and Ultimate. There's dungeons and EX, despite how easy it is, it's much better if you can speed it up. EX is the same, it's often tried by casuals who don't mitigate, the more mitigation/utility around survival your job has, the better. Felt that when I would play tank in Hades EX. On top of that, there's also Relic based content that will come with 5.25
4) During 5.0 my comp was MNK/RDM/MCH/DNC, we had all the 1% from each role but due to our comp we had quite the handicap. But going Melee/2 Casters/1 Ranged brings no handicap despite the "mobility" they should be lacking. If a comp goes 2 ranged, they should be allowed to play 2 ranged without feeling a huge gap in DPS. The fact that Troubadour/Samba/Tactician don't stack also brings a new handicap.

As for the "sad" part, remember that the ranged spot only exist for the 1% stats. That's the sad part.

Don't think in "DPS" only, ranged jobs were just not stripped of their DPS, they also lost valuable utility. Overall, the ranged job lost so much that they bring little for the group and that's why there are so many complaint around the ranged role.

---

I don't care that ranged dps lost some utility. I'm analyzing the current situation, and the current data tells us that ranged dps are not excluded from any kind of content. Being that the case, it's very likely that having one is optimal. If having one is optimal, there's no point arguing about their dps. Were they buffed by X, the devs would just increase the dps requirement for content by X = no difference at all.

Also, their AoE damage is very good, making them a perfectly viable solution for dungeons...assuming anyone cares about completing their dungeon 2 minutes earlier and dropping a job for it. If that was the case, everyone would be running BLM and WHM.

To conclude, my opinion is that double ranged comp should be actively discouraged. The current balance assures that you don't want more than one ranged in your group. That's perfect to me. And while Troubadour/Samba/Tactician do not stack, they're still the strongest defensive cd available to a dps and you can use them twice as much with a double ranged comp.

I'd cite the fastest Levi clear being 5.0 as evidence that there's little to no serious competitive speed running going on. Also the number two Eden time has a Bard when it would very obviously be better if you just slotted in a Dancer. Yet they didn't bother. Heck, there are barely any ASTs up there still.

This isn't a sign of numbers being wrong or misleading, it just means the speed running competitively is all but dead. Some groups will try to do their best with what they've got, but they aren't so hardcore as to kick their ranged or make them / wait for them to learn BLM. Or even, in some cases, make them learn Dancer. Nobody cares enough to do that.

It just doesn't make sense to lead with an assumption that lots of groups are doing their absolute best to get the top possible times at any cost. There's no evidence to back that up, a couple groups trying some comps out late in 5.0 does not a large-sample scientific experiment make.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cetonis

I'd cite the fastest Levi clear being 5.0 as evidence that there's little to no serious competitive speed running going on. Also the number two Eden time has a Bard when it would very obviously be better if you just slotted in a Dancer. Yet they didn't bother. Heck, there are barely any ASTs up there still.

This isn't a sign of numbers being wrong or misleading, it just means the speed running competitively is all but dead. Some groups will try to do their best with what they've got, but they aren't so hardcore as to kick their ranged or make them / wait for them to learn BLM. Or even, in some cases, make them learn Dancer. Nobody cares enough to do that.

It just doesn't make sense to lead with an assumption that lots of groups are doing their absolute best to get the top possible times at any cost. There's no evidence to back that up, a couple groups trying some comps out late in 5.0 does not a large-sample scientific experiment make.

---

True, but at the very least I'm backing my reasoning with the observation of player behavior.

Meanwhile, how do you prove that people would be better off swapping their ranged for a caster or a melee, exactly?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lastelli

That doesn't really matter, though. If having a ranged dps was a strictly inferior choice, by now we'd at the very least see a lot of no-ranged parties on fflogs. If virtually all parties do include a ranged, it's because people see value in them.

I'd go even further and say that if substituting the ranged with another caster or another melee was indifferent, then we'd see some parties with no ranged dps. But again, that's not the case.

Also, speedrunners did try different party comps before 5.2. Trust me, I checked fflogs rankings frequently back then. And even then, before the ranged were buffed, most comps included a DNC.
Someone did try triple melee comps in eden 2 and 3 and got good results...but at the end comps including a DNC were still on top by a few seconds (before the buff). The role buff is probably more powerful then people realize.

I do agree, however, that DNC is clearly superior to the other 2 ranged...to the point where it's stupidly close to melee dps in TEA, but that has more to do with how beneficial downtime is to DNC, given how perfectly everything lines up with quad step and devilment. They can't do anything to DNC to fix this...but what they can do is give the other 2 ranged some tools to capitalize on downtime. I thought they learned their lesson with ultimate coil and uwu (SMN was and still is op for a similar reason)...but I was probably wrong.



I don't care that ranged dps lost some utility. I'm analyzing the current situation, and the current data tells us that ranged dps are not excluded from any kind of content. Being that the case, it's very likely that having one is optimal. If having one is optimal, there's no point arguing about their dps. Were they buffed by X, the devs would just increase the dps requirement for content by X = no difference at all.

Also, their AoE damage is very good, making them a perfectly viable solution for dungeons...assuming anyone cares about completing their dungeon 2 minutes earlier and dropping a job for it. If that was the case, everyone would be running BLM and WHM.

To conclude, my opinion is that double ranged comp should be actively discouraged. The current balance assures that you don't want more than one ranged in your group. That's perfect to me. And while Troubadour/Samba/Tactician do not stack, they're still the strongest defensive cd available to a dps and you can use them twice as much with a double ranged comp.

---

I don't know about the others, I can only explain better what I had in mind, and it's not this question : do range have a spot, will they keep it, will they get more ?

I'm just stating they're behind DPS wise. And the arguments for why don't work on me. If they're buffed, suddenly everyone will take range and only range ? Having a MCH or DNC do the same damage as my SMN (well smn is op so bad exemple, maybe something more like rdm after the buff it will get) won't make me drop it suddenly for MCH, I don't see why it would for so many people ?

If movement was such an issue for all non range classes, you would see no casters. Yet here they are. If uptime was such an issue for all non range classes, you would see no melees. yet here they are, and frequently even 2 by party.
Because uptime is a non issue already at my average level, and even more for you when you play at your level (took the liberty of looking at your profile and you're very good), everyone on your team manages uptime so well it virtually doesn't matter.

So low numbers is an issue that gets more importance unfortunately. Absolutely not saying it gets you excluded. Just saying it's "feels bad man". So if you don't feel bad, well that's really good for you and I can see why you don't get us. Just understand other might. I don't play range so don't really care honestly, just laying out all the points to discuss (cause I've had it with whiny melees who think their job is the hardest in the world and thought at first you were one)

Looking past the actual dps difference between the ranged and non-ranged, I think it's important to examine the reason why it exists in the first place.

If you buy the argument that maintaining melee and casting uptime is difficult, then it looks like the reason the melees and blm are overtuned is to compensate for the fact that most people will not play them perfectly. Conversely, you can think of it as that on these jobs you are rewarded for playing well. The dps tax that these jobs suffer is expressed naturally through gameplay (being unable to hit the boss), and you can erase it with enough skill.

So the question is, why is there no equivalent for the ranged jobs? In the current state of the game, you are not rewarded for being a great ranged player in a similar manner. The dps tax that ranged jobs pay is a glass ceiling that's hard coded into the amount of damage you do.

The only explanations for this are,

• The ranged jobs are just designed badly with no way to express your skill (meh)
• Ranged jobs are intended to be the entry level 'beginner' jobs. They're designed to punish you the least for mistakes in exchange for lower potential (oof)

I don't know about you but neither of these sound like good news for the prospects of the role. Maybe they're designed like this on purpose to cater to the demographic that enjoys these jobs casually, in which case the expert players that enjoy ranged are just out of luck.

If it were up to me, they'd need to give the job back a strong niche and source of difficulty that would justify returning their lost dps to them. For example, a hellishly difficult and nuanced rotation that's actually possible to flub even if not moving. Or go even harder on the support aspect with enough support responsibilities to actually tax your multitasking ability. Some of this was the case back in Heavensward, but given how they've spent the last 2 expansions trying to move away from that, I don't think the role is going back in that direction anytime soon.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lastelli

True, but at the very least I'm backing my reasoning with the observation of player behavior.

Meanwhile, how do you prove that people would be better off swapping their ranged for a caster or a melee, exactly?

---

I'm not attempting to prove that. Just saying that it's oversimplifying things at best to just point at the speed rankings charts given all the red flags there.

I don't think there's any mystery to the role bonus - it's clearly a 0.95% or so loss of damage across the board, it's not all that complicated. So you can figure out very directly that bringing a DNC is a good idea if chasing E1S and E3S speed kills.

With E2S and E4S that appears at first blush to not be the case. However, it's hard to quantify the value of including a 2m burst job into a buff stacking scenario, because the DNC itself is going to add to the rDPS production of other jobs in a way that fflogs has no capacity to measure.


My point is that this is very DNC-specific, and that presents a conundrum. If you can't bring a DNC, it seems very unlikely that bringing a BRD or MCH will be better than finding a high-skilled SMN/BLM. But, a situation where BRD=MCH=DNC at the top end of speeds would be bad, due to how much faster relatively DNC is going to fall off with less-perfected groups.

But DNC isn't optimal for a dummy fight (E2S) by very much, if it is at all, so there's not really any space there to i.e. bring BRD/MCH closer and just-into viability range without getting to the level of DNC.

What there *is* room to do is to bring DNC up a little more, to where it rivals other jobs in an optimized group, so that you can raise BRD/MCH up but still clearly behind DNC (blocking off the double ranged option), which will get closer as group quality falls.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Karshan

I'm just stating they're behind DPS wise.

---

I understand your point and I'm not arguing against that. My point is that as long as ranged jobs are included in an optimal party composition, people shouldn't care. Feeling bad about lower numbers even if your job is still wanted is irrational if you understand how the game works.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Karshan

I don't know about the others, I can only explain better what I had in mind, and it's not this question : do range have a spot, will they keep it, will they get more ?

I'm just stating they're behind DPS wise. And the arguments for why don't work on me. If they're buffed, suddenly everyone will take range and only range ? Having a MCH or DNC do the same damage as my SMN (well smn is op so bad exemple, maybe something more like rdm after the buff it will get) won't make me drop it suddenly for MCH, I don't see why it would for so many people ?

If movement was such an issue for all non range classes, you would see no casters. Yet here they are. If uptime was such an issue for all non range classes, you would see no melees. yet here they are, and frequently even 2 by party.
Because uptime is a non issue already at my average level, and even more for you when you play at your level (took the liberty of looking at your profile and you're very good), everyone on your team manages uptime so well it virtually doesn't matter.

So low numbers is an issue that gets more importance unfortunately. Absolutely not saying it gets you excluded. Just saying it's "feels bad man". So if you don't feel bad, well that's really good for you and I can see why you don't get us. Just understand other might. I don't play range so don't really care honestly, just laying out all the points to discuss (cause I've had it with whiny melees who think their job is the hardest in the world and thought at first you were one)

---

You may not switch but other people will. You needs only look at 5.0 where PF was locking out Ninja because it was objectively the worst melee by no small margin. SE cannot simply look at what the best players are doing. They have to consider the average. And it's here why those gaps are going to be far more noticeable if the Range did comparable damage to the melee. Why devise uptime strats, especially if they're harder or requiring more healing when you can just take a Machinist instead of a Samurai? Eden's Gate is a terrible example given how little downtime there was for melee. Hence why I point to Alphascape. If you weren't doing uptime Hello, World as a melee, your damage tanked severely, especially if you were unlucky and got second stack. You're very much underestimating people if you think buffing the range to match melee and casters won't lead to the former getting locked out.

As for the Casters. Only Red Mage lacks mobility at this point. They don't have the free mobility Range do but they have tools to manage it, especially Summoner.

If they continue to develop Savage fights like Eden's Gate, then mobility will play less of an impact. If they give us another O12S. It's a dead melee fight outside statics. None of this accounts for the melee also having no utility to speak of outside Feint (by far the weakest) and Mantra (Monk exclusive). I do think their damage is too low but Machinist shouldn't be rivaling Samurai or Black Mage.

This sounds like a community problem more than anything else.

Is the game design where you need to have the optional group setup? If so it is a game problem.

Is the game design where you don't, and having the best group setup..but players still need to have this. It is a problem with the community.


It is a endless cycle and at some point I think developers should just ignore it. They kinda already have that stance with the no parsing, and consider it harassing when you call out people for low dps.

Balance should not be done around what people are willing to invite.

The more people that cry for buffs the happier I will be, so keep it coming. You want us to do sam/blm levels of damage fine by me.

I play what I enjoy, not what does the biggest damage (casting is boring as hell).

Tbf, I dont know why people wants to force the "two melees", if there is all 3 dps roles, I dont know why bringing a second ranged should penalize a team that much, compared to bringing another melee or caster.

Machinist is easy to pick up but not as easy to fully optimize and keep that high apm without any drift, on top of being highly depending of raid buffs to do his damage, which BLM and SAM dont depend on as much. So mch should have less dps than a job having rezzes and raid buffs just because we can "move" ? I felt way more comfy playing SMN than I did playing playing MCH because of the mobility and the lack of intensity in its gameplay.

Lots of other jobs could just do the ranged movement, even tho they'll lose 1 or 2 GCD and still outdps the ranged contribution in any content.

i'll even more double down on the fact MCH should be on a BLM or SAM lvl, if a team have all 3 roles already and they want a greedy job? why isnt mch a valid choice? just because they can move? As I said in multiple other threads, ranged, because of the mobility are doing -more- mechanics than others, to let them have more dps and we are punished for it?? In which world is that fair? Because we are doing well our job, we are getting punished? Imagine IRL you did more studies, leading to you doing more stuff than others but being paid less because you have an easier time doing it ?

And to answer other questions, double ranged was taken because casters were really bad, which isnt the case here (outside of rdm being a bit low), even if the ranged were buffed (accordingly to how they should be, not overbuffed), people would actually have the choice to play -what they enjoy- and not feel like having only one ranged is mandatory or dps will become an issue. Thus, when double ranged were taken, it was because the other jobs were trash garbage to play and felt horrible on top of having bad dps. if a job has an horrible gameplay but have good dps, it'll be played anyway.