Is 2 melee 1 caster 1 ranged going to be just expected from now on?

Melee does the most damage. Caster and ranged are there to fulfill party bonus requirements. Will fights from now on just expect 2 melee compositions? Or will we see ranged and caster improved that can rationalize a 2 caster or 2 ranged comp.

If things keep going as they are, we might even see 3 melee 1 ranged.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

If things keep going as they are, we might even see 3 melee 1 ranged.

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I’ve seen people crunching the numbers to see if they can gain from just going 4 melee. You do run into problems with where you put people for uptime though. Since tanks are also technically melee dps

I'm being dramatic lol. I don't know if 4 melee would be a thing but 3 melee 1 dancer is probably close enough tbh.

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Originally Posted by Elizasylen

I’ve seen people crunching the numbers to see if they can gain from just going 4 melee. You do run into problems with where you put people for uptime though. Since tanks are also technically melee dps

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rin uptime for ruby 5 anyone?

Idk Samurai Ninja Monk Dragoon sounds like it can do a lot

Well last expansion 2 casters was meta. I don't mind 2 melee 1 phys ranged 1 caster meta, because there's more melee in the game so it makes sense, and most mechanics balance for 2 tanks 2 melee in mind.

8 BLUs is the future.

Going with 4 melee will mean that you only have +3% Stat for the party bonus.

If people goes with 2 Melee 1 Ranged and 1 Caster, you're getting +5%.

Actually 1% means something between 28 and 30 of your main stat. I let you do the math.

Considering that a high-end potion actually is at +223 max for 30 second, imagine loosing 60 STR for melee but on 10 minutes ?

Back in SB everyone got 3% in a stat that is represented by the job in the team. Tank for Vitality, Melee for STR, Ranged for DEX and Magic for INT (I don't know if Ninja was giving DEX, but I guess it does, otherwise that would be completely illogic)

Now you get 1% all stat for every different role present in the team, up to 5%.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Well last expansion 2 casters was meta. I don't mind 2 melee 1 phys ranged 1 caster meta, because there's more melee in the game so it makes sense, and most mechanics balance for 2 tanks 2 melee in mind.

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I heard this claim, and while I can maybe somewhat believe it, I don't recall a specific time BLM/SMN was better than just rolling 2 melee. I know TPS ran it but they were even trying to run that comp in EW. Every speedrun I've looked at also had 2 melee in the comp.

I recall also in StB casters weren't in the meta at all until very late when SMN finally broke the double piercing stranglehold.

It's been the future since Shadowbringers. Even when casters were good, RDM lost damage by being around another caster. Ironically, now they can buff magic damage they suck.

Outside of BLM/SMN in ShB, it's (sadly) been pretty clear they want to comp lock us.

The distinction between 'physical ranged' and 'magical ranged' is arbitrary and only exists because casters feel that they should by rights do more damage than more 'support-focused' bard/dancer types. Truth is, most players prefer to play dps at range, which is reflected in the total number of ranged jobs. I think that given the option, the overwhelming majority of groups would switch to three ranged players if they could, be they physical ranged or magical ranged, similar to how we would naturally add a fifth dps if mechanics and buffs made it advantageous to do so. And two of those slots are guaranteed anyways.

I think it's sensible for all dps jobs to do very similar rdps where possible. But they really should completely eliminate the physical/magical subdivision and give two slots to melee, and two to ranged.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The distinction between 'physical ranged' and 'magical ranged' is arbitrary and only exists because casters feel that they should by rights do more damage than more 'support-focused' bard/dancer types. Truth is, most players prefer to play dps at range, which is reflected in the total number of ranged jobs. I think that given the option, the overwhelming majority of groups would switch to three ranged players if they could, be they physical ranged or magical ranged, similar to how we would naturally add a fifth dps if mechanics and buffs made it advantageous to do so. And two of those slots are guaranteed anyways.

I think it's sensible for all dps jobs to do very similar rdps where possible. But they really should completely eliminate the physical/magical subdivision and give two slots to melee, and two to ranged.

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agreed and disagree.
physical ranged should be behind because of their complete free movement, should they be that far behind? no, not really.
caster should be competing with melee honestly way more, regardless if RDM has rezzes or not, you're standing still and have limited movement for extended periods of time, melee don't have to really concider uptime anymore with this tier and even last tier was really melee uptime friendly if you looked a bit further than the initial strats gave you.

DPS should do somewhat equal damage (minus SAM, BLM and MCH, which MCH should be around the middle with SAM and BLM being the top)
that's why i can't understand why melee do so much damage, sure maybe in Stormblood melee uptime was more difficult to come by, but in SHB in general minus a few fights melee uptimes was extremely generous and with EW especially 2nd tier melee uptime is basically 100%

Looks like they are planning to minimize the range/melee dpps gap, whether thats nerfs or buffs wont know till whichever patch they drop it. But yeah the enlarged hitboxes on recent bosses has made uptime for melee substantially better.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The distinction between 'physical ranged' and 'magical ranged' is arbitrary and only exists because casters feel that they should by rights do more damage than more 'support-focused' bard/dancer types. Truth is, most players prefer to play dps at range, which is reflected in the total number of ranged jobs. I think that given the option, the overwhelming majority of groups would switch to three ranged players if they could, be they physical ranged or magical ranged, similar to how we would naturally add a fifth dps if mechanics and buffs made it advantageous to do so. And two of those slots are guaranteed anyways.

I think it's sensible for all dps jobs to do very similar rdps where possible. But they really should completely eliminate the physical/magical subdivision and give two slots to melee, and two to ranged.

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That would quite possibly eliminate casters altogether, as has been proven multiple times throughout this game's lifetime by exactly that, but sure why not.

ideally they buff phys ranged/caster since theyve been in the toilet for far too long

i prefer having double melee as a reaper main, losing a few gcds to lb3 is painful since you lose a significant chunk of meter

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

8 BLUs is the future.

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When they remember that Blu exists lol

I'm pretty sure in the live letter they did say they were doing something about the "melee" tax damage difference. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Personally what I would like is
I hope that BLM is "top" dps, "rez"casters and physranged are moved to be close to, melee should still be ahead but the other jobs should be very close.

In "personal" damage terms BLM/SAM/MCH should be the top three DPS, obviously raid buffs should play make up for that and total "r/dps" should make sure that all jobs should be close enough to each other.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The distinction between 'physical ranged' and 'magical ranged' is arbitrary

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I feel this is a gross oversimplification of the problem at hand. 'Physical Ranged' and 'Magical Ranged' are in-fact two different categories on the whole. Let's use Bard and Black Mage as an example. Bard is a simplistic DPS class that can upkeep 100% uptime from ANYWHERE, with largely negligible input from the player beyond rolling their GCD. Black Mage is a class that requires extensive fight knowledge to plot out your lines, where and when you can use transpose, and how best to use your movement resources as to maintain uptime during movement mechanics.

This is the reason Ranged and Magical are different categories. SMN belongs in the Phys Ranged category, I'd even dare say, to make my point even clearer. A decent portion of BLM and RDM's complexity comes from mapping how they approach fights to maintain optimal uptime. This is not a facet of gameplay phys ranged have, at all. That is why BLM and RDM should do more damage than the Phys Ranged role, and Phys Ranged should be focused on providing group support. However, with Machinist having no support and poor damage to show for it, I'd be in favor of a return to eld. Give Machinist Gauss Barrel and Ammo back, so we can thereby make it have to take this facet of gameplay into account again and in turn make them stronger.

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Originally Posted by Videra

I feel this is a gross oversimplification of the problem at hand. 'Physical Ranged' and 'Magical Ranged' are in-fact two different categories on the whole. Let's use Bard and Black Mage as an example. Bard is a simplistic DPS class that can upkeep 100% uptime from ANYWHERE, with largely negligible input from the player beyond rolling their GCD. Black Mage is a class that requires extensive fight knowledge to plot out your lines, where and when you can use transpose, and how best to use your movement resources as to maintain uptime during movement mechanics.

This is the reason Ranged and Magical are different categories. SMN belongs in the Phys Ranged category, I'd even dare say, to make my point even clearer. A decent portion of BLM and RDM's complexity comes from mapping how they approach fights to maintain optimal uptime. This is not a facet of gameplay phys ranged have, at all. That is why BLM and RDM should do more damage than the Phys Ranged role, and Phys Ranged should be focused on providing group support. However, with Machinist having no support and poor damage to show for it, I'd be in favor of a return to eld. Give Machinist Gauss Barrel and Ammo back, so we can thereby make it have to take this facet of gameplay into account again and in turn make them stronger.

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No. MCH should do less than SAM and BLM because of mobility, but more than everyone else because it offers no raid damage buffs.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

No. MCH should do less than SAM and BLM because of mobility, but more than everyone else because it offers no raid damage buffs.

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It should, yes. But SE isn't willing to do that, so the compromise I'd propose is to take notes from HW MCH design to 'justify' the increase to MCH's damage.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

No. MCH should do less than SAM and BLM because of mobility, but more than everyone else because it offers no raid damage buffs.

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Ranged tax is nonsense these days.

Boss hitboxes are so damn huge these days, melee have barely any downtime at all, also SAM has 2 dashes and has way better survivability through shields and self healing than MCH, so the damage should equal out if you take those into consideration.
Same for BLM, they have gotten multiple ways to mitigate movement penalties over the years while hitting like a truck still while again having 2 dashes and a massive shield for survivability.

Always funny how ranged should be taxed, but the other jobs shouldn't be taxed despite having way more tools besides dps.
This isn't HW anymore, jobs have come a long way by now, except ranged physicals ones because people keep the old mindset.

In an ideal world, all dps jobs would provide the same amount of raid dps. But everyone is motivated by personal interest.

The tax on physical ranged players exists purely because casters will do everything in their power to ensure that distinction remains. Even if the dev team designs all subsequent raid tiers with bosses that have larger hitboxes and reduces the relative contribution of melee dps as a result, casters will always demand that they do more damage than ranged. They'll argue it on the basis of having to stop to cast, and they'll argue it on the basis of support benefits brought by ranged jobs. So that's really where your battle lies. That 'fourth' spot never belonged to you in the first place. You'll just switch over from double melee, 1 physical ranged, and 1 magical ranged, to 1 melee, 2 magical ranged, and 1 physical ranged. In fact, if you had complete dps parity and removed the need to bring specific subroles, people would probably just run pure physical/magical ranged comps anyways.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

In an ideal world, all dps jobs would provide the same amount of raid dps. But everyone is motivated by personal interest.

The tax on physical ranged players exists purely because casters will do everything in their power to ensure that distinction remains. Even if the dev team designs all subsequent raid tiers with bosses that have larger hitboxes and reduces the relative contribution of melee dps as a result, casters will always demand that they do more damage than ranged. They'll argue it on the basis of having to stop to cast, and they'll argue it on the basis of support benefits brought by ranged jobs. So that's really where your battle lies. That 'fourth' spot never belonged to you in the first place. You'll just switch over from double melee, 1 physical ranged, and 1 magical ranged, to 1 melee, 2 magical ranged, and 1 physical ranged. In fact, if you had complete dps parity and removed the need to bring specific subroles, people would probably just run pure physical/magical ranged comps anyways.

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Which is why throughout most of HW and StB the meta comp and most taken comp was double melee double phys ranged.

Sure buddy.

Before Reaper you might had been able to make a case that the three DPS roles are somewhat evenly weighted, but no more.
Especially if 7.0 slots in another melee dps into the mix, it will be quite decided.

I would only agree with removal of dmg tax if SE is going the big hitbox bosses route 100% on all end-game content with no exceptions.
Before the savage dungeon came out I would have agreed to bring the dmg tax to a minimum or just remove it, but after clearing the 2 bosses and progging a little of the 3rd on DRG and MCH and it was a day and night difference, I think melee does in fact have to work far more when the bosses don't have huge hitboxes, positional exist and getting out that extra GCDs in melee without dying takes effort & mastery of the mechanics because you will be doing far more dangerous uptime strats, and that basically at any point in time SE can go back to doing small hitboxes on savage bosses without any warning and without adjusting the job numbers.
So basically tax needs to exist if they are doing to be this inconsistent about their design philosophy.

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Originally Posted by Llynethil

Ranged tax is nonsense these days.

Boss hitboxes are so damn huge these days, melee have barely any downtime at all, also SAM has 2 dashes and has way better survivability through shields and self healing than MCH, so the damage should equal out if you take those into consideration.
Same for BLM, they have gotten multiple ways to mitigate movement penalties over the years while hitting like a truck still while again having 2 dashes and a massive shield for survivability.

Always funny how ranged should be taxed, but the other jobs shouldn't be taxed despite having way more tools besides dps.
This isn't HW anymore, jobs have come a long way by now, except ranged physicals ones because people keep the old mindset.

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Ranged tax Makes sense to a extent, In the case of samurai, I could see a world where the idea of it doing the "same" damage as Machinist is fine, Keep in mind Samurai has to still do positional, Even if the bosses hit boxes are bigger Machinist has the entire stage, Machinist has a better raid wide mit (faint only does 5% on magic damage) (also still has second wind for self healing), I think Mach should generally be a bit behind samurai, Still, just nothing near what it's like currently (hopefully we can all agree that mch is far too behind and should have at least the 3rd personal highest dps)

We're talking 1-2% behind not current Levels of machinist, to "compensate" you could also give Machinist (not raid damage buffs) a extra form of Utility in something, as well. But I do not think MCH should be strictly ahead of Samurai.

If we're talking BLM here, then BLM should actually be ahead of samurai, its mobility isn't great compared to melee dps/Ranged dps, BLM generally is one of the most punishing jobs for mobility still and it's a struggle, the only other Job that struggles like BLM is arguably RDM depending on who you ask, Also it's "barrier" is strong but less frequent then samurais self mitigations and has no way of self healing, to be fair BLM self barrier is pretty strong for what it is.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

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It's worth remembering that the way that we evaluate dps has changed since early Stormblood. Historically, your dps contribution was your own dps. So when DRG provided a 100% uptime damage buff to ranged, that permanently belonged to the ranged, not to the DRG that provided it. It's also worth remembering that the entire 'bow caster/gun caster' philosophy of Heavensward was built to offset the complaint that 'casters' had to do more work.

The delineation between physical and magical ranged dps benefits casters, not physical ranged. If you eliminated it and merged ranged into a single category, you'd have no way of justifying why a spellcaster should do more damage than a physical ranged because they'd all be members of the same group.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

In an ideal world, all dps jobs would provide the same amount of raid dps. But everyone is motivated by personal interest.

The tax on physical ranged players exists purely because casters will do everything in their power to ensure that distinction remains. Even if the dev team designs all subsequent raid tiers with bosses that have larger hitboxes and reduces the relative contribution of melee dps as a result, casters will always demand that they do more damage than ranged. They'll argue it on the basis of having to stop to cast, and they'll argue it on the basis of support benefits brought by ranged jobs. So that's really where your battle lies. That 'fourth' spot never belonged to you in the first place. You'll just switch over from double melee, 1 physical ranged, and 1 magical ranged, to 1 melee, 2 magical ranged, and 1 physical ranged. In fact, if you had complete dps parity and removed the need to bring specific subroles, people would probably just run pure physical/magical ranged comps anyways.

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Lmao. Play Black Mage in any extreme or savage fight and come back to me and say Ranged and Magic aren't different categories.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

Ranged tax Makes sense to a extent, In the case of samurai, I could see a world where the idea of it doing the "same" damage as Machinist is fine, Keep in mind Samurai has to still do positional, Even if the bosses hit boxes are bigger Machinist has the entire stage, Machinist has a better raid wide mit (faint only does 5% on magic damage) (also still has second wind for self healing), I think Mach should generally be a bit behind samurai, Still, just nothing near what it's like currently (hopefully we can all agree that mch is far too behind and should have at least the 3rd personal highest dps)

We're talking 1-2% behind not current Levels of machinist, to "compensate" you could also give Machinist (not raid damage buffs) a extra form of Utility in something, as well. But I do not think MCH should be strictly ahead of Samurai.

If we're talking BLM here, then BLM should actually be ahead of samurai, its mobility isn't great compared to melee dps/Ranged dps, BLM generally is one of the most punishing jobs for mobility still and it's a struggle, the only other Job that struggles like BLM is arguably RDM depending on who you ask, Also it's "barrier" is strong but less frequent then samurais self mitigations and has no way of self healing, to be fair BLM self barrier is pretty strong for what it is.

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Based off boss arena designs for savage, the devs have admitted that ranged tax, though, isn't really much of a thing these days. Most bosses have hit boxes so large that only very rarely do melee jobs have to disengage from the bosses, and even then only for maybe 1 GCD. So to that end, the did announce that they're going to be adjusting job damage to reduce or possibly eliminate the ranged tax in the next patch. Remains to be seen what they think the appropriate discrepancy is.... but I would say that casting and melee jobs should be about even for damage with ranged being maybe just slightly behind for those few instances where they do have to go where other jobs would either have to adjust swifts or lose casts or disengage. Maybe balance ranged to the damage level of a melee who sometimes misses positionals or a caster who stops casting for movement phases rather than using instant casts to reward the other jobs for good planning

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Originally Posted by Videra

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But you've proved my point, though. That 'flex' raid spot is never going to go to a ranged player as long as casters have anything to say about it, because they think that they're just better as a subgroup. But by rights, all jobs should have rdps parity, because nobody wants to invest time into mastering a scuffed job. And if players keep shouting that a particular job deserves to be superior to others because it is so much more difficult, you know what SE's response to that is always going to be. The ever desired 'rework'.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

It's worth remembering that the way that we evaluate dps has changed since early Stormblood. Historically, your dps contribution was your own dps. So when DRG provided a 100% uptime damage buff to ranged, that permanently belonged to the ranged, not to the DRG that provided it. It's also worth remembering that the entire 'bow caster/gun caster' philosophy of Heavensward was built to offset the complaint that 'casters' had to do more work.

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Even back then though, total raid DPS was higher running with double melee double phys ranged, or it wouldn't have been / popular. rDPS and aDPS change how DPS is distributed among the team, but it does not change the total damage the whole raid wound up doing at the end of the day.

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The delineation between physical and magical ranged dps benefits casters, not physical ranged. If you eliminated it and merged ranged into a single category, you'd have no way of justifying why a spellcaster should do more damage than a physical ranged because they'd all be members of the same group.

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The delineation between the three types of DPS benefits both phys ranged and casters, because without that 1% buff both groups would be hotly abandoned in the current meta. Drop the distinction between casters and phys ranged, phys ranged would be gone from the meta; drop the distinction between phys ranged and casters but buff phys ranged to caster (read: BLM, because SMN and RDM already do phys ranged tier damage) damage, then casters would vanish but for the enthusiasts who already have shining resumes as casters.

Drop the delineation between phys and magic, and add casting to the phys ranged a la HW? We'd be getting somewhere at that point. I do have to say I love this portrait of "the evil oppressive privileged casters" though; we do just exist to keep the phys ranged down don't we?

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

Drop the delineation between phys and magic, and add casting to the phys ranged a la HW? We'd be getting somewhere at that point. I do have to say I love this portrait of "the evil oppressive privileged casters" though; we do just exist to keep the phys ranged down don't we?

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It's been a few months since I've gotten to blame the summoners.

So I'm going to blame the summoners.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

It's been a few months since I've gotten to blame the summoners.

So I'm going to blame the summoners.

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Big fair tbh.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

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There are two issues.

The first is that all dps jobs should be on a level playing field in terms of damage output. Everyone wants to feel like they're able to make an equal contribution to a team. Discriminating between the jobs on the basis of one job or role being supposedly 'easier' is going to make those jobs not fun to play. There's always room to play individual jobs on a much higher level than other players, but there's no point investing that effort in if the path you're going down is treated by the community as easier or inferior. If there's a genuine discrepancy, the answer is to adjust the difficulty, not the damage output.

The second is that there are two protected ranged spots, but only one protected melee spot. Differentiating between jobs as 'physical ranged' and 'magical ranged' is arbitrary. You could just as easily subdivide melee into 'physical melee' and 'magical melee' and guarantee a spot for each. It would also justify adding more melee jobs. Oh, there are only three physical melee jobs, perhaps we should add another. When we remove the arbitary physical/magical distinction, we can see that there are 5 melee jobs to 6 ranged.

When you look at fight design, you'll see that fights are specifically designed for two melee players and two ranged players. Turning one of those spots into a caster spot gives you a lot more flexibility on spread mechanics. Most groups would move to three ranged and one melee in a heartbeat if there was no disadvantage for doing so, and we've seen that in the past.

But as things stand, that flex spot isn't going to go from melee to 'ranged'. It's going to go specifically from melee to casters, because casters treat physical ranged like second class citizens. It's the 'easymode' ranged role. It's the 'support-orientated' ranged role. And that's perception is a serious problem.

Again, I want to see all jobs on a level playing field across the board, because then player skill reigns over job selection. But I don't think giving casters the advantage of having an extra slot dedicated to them is the answer. And it most certainly will go to them, as things stand.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

There are two issues.

The first is that all dps jobs should be on a level playing field in terms of damage output. Everyone wants to feel like they're able to make an equal contribution to a team. Discriminating between the jobs on the basis of one job or role being supposedly 'easier' is going to make those jobs not fun to play. There's always room to play individual jobs on a much higher level than other players, but there's no point investing that effort in if the path you're going down is treated by the community as easier or inferior. If there's a genuine discrepancy, the answer is to adjust the difficulty, not the damage output.

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You're preaching to the choir a bit here on "difficulty should not equal damage output." I don't necessarily agree that phys ranged should be the weaker faux supports they're relegated to being, but me saying that runs a bit contrary to me treating phys ranged like second class citizens I guess. Most people would have tried to counter my jab about you painting casters as a privileged oppressive class; I respect you for powering through and accepting that role, if for nothing else.

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The second is that there are two protected ranged spots, but only one protected melee spot. Differentiating between jobs as 'physical ranged' and 'magical ranged' is arbitrary. You could just as easily subdivide melee into 'physical melee' and 'magical melee' and guarantee a spot for each. It would also justify adding more melee jobs. Oh, there are only three physical melee jobs, perhaps we should add another. When we remove the arbitary physical/magical distinction, we can see that there are 5 melee jobs to 6 ranged.

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Call it arbitrary all you like, SE is the one who made the designation. Not you or me. There's usually a clear difference in gameplay between casters and physical ranged as well; IE, the actual casting. If we were to melt the ranged into all one role, everyone should then have cast times. The way the 1% buffs have been allocated, you have room for 1 tank/1 heal/1 melee/1 phys ranged/1 caster/1 flex; whether that flex goes to caster or phys ranged I don't really care, as long as it's not always locked into 2m/1r/1c.

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When you look at fight design, you'll see that fights are specifically designed for two melee players and two ranged players. Turning one of those spots into a caster spot gives you a lot more flexibility on spread mechanics. Most groups would move to three ranged and one melee in a heartbeat if there was no disadvantage for doing so, and we've seen that in the past.

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And yet despite that, of the ranged classes we have at least two (RDM and DNC) who very frequently need to be in melee range for a variety of reasons; melee combo, dance proximity, and of course hitting the party with raidwide buffs. These happening frequently during bursts means that, actually, ranged need to be able to find ways to be in melee during some of the highest apm sections of the fight, especially when those are often the times a ton of mechanics start getting belted out. Centaur First for p8s part 1 for instance would see needing to get embo and melee combo rolling for quite a bit of time during a mechanic that at first glance sees 4 melee and 4 range safe spots.

Not to mention that BLM, when it takes the flex spot, very frequently takes the melee spot itself just because the melees tend to need to move less which behooves a BLM pretty well.

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But as things stand, that flex spot isn't going to go from melee to 'ranged'. It's going to go specifically from melee to casters, because casters treat physical ranged like second class citizens. It's the 'easymode' ranged role. It's the 'support-orientated' ranged role. And that's perception is a serious problem.

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As things stand, it would go specifically to Black Mage, because again, there's no real damage distinction between RDM, SMN, BRD, DNC, and MCH.

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Again, I want to see all jobs on a level playing field across the board, because then player skill reigns over job selection. But I don't think giving casters the advantage of having an extra slot dedicated to them is the answer. And it most certainly will go to them, as things stand.

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You're picking awful weird fights on the forums if that's your goal. I don't disagree with the idea on the merits of it, but I stand by what I said earlier: mixing phys ranged and casters into a single role as things are now would be a cluster.

SOON OUR CHANGES AS COME ON THE 1ST NOVEMBER. In before 50 potencies for all casters and physical ranged dps. :cool:

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Originally Posted by Zarkovitch

SOON OUR CHANGES AS COME ON THE 1ST NOVEMBER. In before 50 potencies for all casters and physical ranged dps. :cool:

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Wo wo wo. That is being too genius. 5 would be most likely with SE track record lately.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

Based off boss arena designs for savage, the devs have admitted that ranged tax, though, isn't really much of a thing these days. Most bosses have hit boxes so large that only very rarely do melee jobs have to disengage from the bosses, and even then only for maybe 1 GCD. So to that end, the did announce that they're going to be adjusting job damage to reduce or possibly eliminate the ranged tax in the next patch. Remains to be seen what they think the appropriate discrepancy is.... but I would say that casting and melee jobs should be about even for damage with ranged being maybe just slightly behind for those few instances where they do have to go where other jobs would either have to adjust swifts or lose casts or disengage. Maybe balance ranged to the damage level of a melee who sometimes misses positionals or a caster who stops casting for movement phases rather than using instant casts to reward the other jobs for good planning

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I think Black Mage is way more "difficult" to position and optimize for bosses then samurai so I do think BLM generally should actually be a tiny bit ahead of Samurai, a lot of groups also have to play more around the BLM.

Samurai (and other melees) are generally more confined to the boss, but in general every change has made it more easier and easier, the SHB ranged tax was even a bit too much imo.

I generally think phys ranged should do a little less then melee/casters, I think all phys ranged should 1. offer some strong utility 2. Offer good damage that the "1% buff", isn't why they're picked

I think the major issue comes with if we ignore the 1% rule pretended it didn't exist, we could possibly see 3 (even 4? I'm not 100%) melees (this heavily depends on the fight don't get me wrong), even if they lose uptime, You would never bring a phys ranged either you'd likely want 3 Melees / 1 Summoner or 2 Melees / 1 Smn / 1 Blm depending on how the fight is designed for melees, It's barely worth it to bring a phys ranged outside of "1% buff"

It feels like the only current purpose of bringing a Phys ranged is "you give 1%" Casters are similar but with something like blm at least it does ok damage (not enough by a long shot) SMN gives better Utility and is more free for movement then most casters.

Melee are so strong right now, I don't feel like the "1% buff" fixes the imbalance between roles, don't get me wrong I actually think it's a ok failsafe, incase any role type (like phys ranged) becomes useless without it, but I would generally want all "DPS" to output way closer then they do, the 4th dps slot should always be free in my opinion, not a expected double melee.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zarkovitch

SOON OUR CHANGES AS COME ON THE 1ST NOVEMBER. In before 50 potencies for all casters and physical ranged dps. :cool:

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I'm expecting a 10 potency buff for ranged

...to second wind that is

But seriously, I'm not expecting much, if I had to guess it would be a 1 or 2% increase across the board with dancer not getting buffed much, if at all.

SE prefers to treat physical ranged and casters (With the exception of BLM) like second class citizens so I'm expecting the potency changes to reflect that. I'd like to say that SE learned their lesson about treating ranged players badly, but that would be a pipe dream considering they still don't understand why people won't play healers.