From Meleewalker to Meleetrail

Copium that them adding a new caster has them realize how fucked the role is with the current fight design, but I doubt it. Also feels bad to be a phys ranged, insane that they will still only have 3 job options for another 3+ years

As a mch main, it does kind of suck. They've acknowledged that physical ranged needs to be reworked, and adding a ranged physical would have given them to rebalance and really look at the role and how it fits into current game play. And sometimes it feels like they know what the problems are with the role but don't care enough to fix it

Yeah honestly I wouldn't be surprised if they consolidated the phys ranged and caster role into one Ranged role just so that people would stop asking about it. Maybe bring back the idea of some phys ranged have cast times but make it like pvp bard and machinist where they can move through the entirety of the cast to provide some uniqueness from casters. Idk im just spitballing here

I've been a mch main since HW with dragoon being my alt, and there's a lot about the old kit that I miss. I didn't mind being a gun mage, I miss the utility and turrets of past iterations.
I've level almost every melee, except monk, and melee downtime is overly exaggerated. Almost every melee has a ranged attack and while its a drop in dps its negligible in the overall. I find ppl who complain the most about downtime are the players who run out of melee and never once use their ranged ability. And this became even more apparent with Endwalker and the massive hit boxes.

I'm a little bummed its not a new phys range just to even out roles 4 range 4 caster but then we would have gotten a phys range every other expac
HW,ShB,DT
so I'm alright with a new Scouting DPS

They could have still done scouting gear with ranged physical. Ninjas already share some gear pieces with the role as they are both dex based. I'm all for scouting gear but we just got a melee last expansion. So 2 back to back expansions with melee.

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Originally Posted by Rychu

Copium that them adding a new caster has them realize how fucked the role is with the current fight design, but I doubt it. Also feels bad to be a phys ranged, insane that they will still only have 3 job options for another 3+ years

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I mean, I understand their reasoning since there hasn't been a new caster DPS since Stormblood. But yeah, feelsbad to be rphys those days. I do hope they seriously fortify the role in meleetrail copium, else it's gonna be a disaster.

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Originally Posted by WiccaP

I've been a mch main since HW with dragoon being my alt, and there's a lot about the old kit that I miss. I didn't mind being a gun mage, I miss the utility and turrets of past iterations.

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What I do miss the most is the ammo system (because who needs a non branching bland melee combo on a job that had a following of proc/priority enjoyers? what did we do to you square enix??), and the old wildfire that was a semi rng burst cramming all we had for 40% of our total output which was literally the job identity. Wildfire those days more like a static mildfire.

I really hope that they eliminate the arbitrary subdivision between ranged subtypes so that we can put these complaints to rest. There are six ranged jobs currently (excluding BLU) going on to seven next expansion. There's never been a lack of options for players who want to play at a distance, and it's always is the predominant playstyle in any MMO. Rather than pushing for eight ranged jobs, we really should be adding in more supports, which I hope will be in the next set of additions.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I really hope that they eliminate the arbitrary subdivision between ranged subtypes so that we can put these complaints to rest. There are six ranged jobs currently (excluding BLU) going on to seven next expansion. There's never been a lack of options for players who want to play at a distance, and it's always is the predominant playstyle in any MMO. Rather than pushing for eight ranged jobs, we really should be adding in more supports, which I hope will be in the next set of additions.

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I would prefer the new caster to be closer to BLM in terms of function. High damage low on on the utility scale.

I want another caster that isn’t a Rez mage and therefore isn’t paying a tax so it can compete with black mage, when adding in a small amount of damage utility.

Summoner used to compete once upon a time.

I’m a little bummed with all the hype in the new melee job. It’s all the content creators are talking about.

We just got a melee job, in an expansion that was heavily melee focused.

I really want the developers to give casters some love.

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Originally Posted by Sequora

I would prefer the new caster to be closer to BLM in terms of function. High damage low on on the utility scale.

I want another caster that isn’t a Rez mage and therefore isn’t paying a tax so it can compete with black mage, when adding in a small amount of damage utility.

Summoner used to compete once upon a time.

I’m a little bummed with all the hype in the new melee job. It’s all the content creators are talking about.

We just got a melee job, in an expansion that was heavily melee focused.

I really want the developers to give casters some love.

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To be fair, I think all the excitement is on the melee job because that is likely what was hinted at in the trailer. Given that the WoL is shown fighting with a sword in a pirate-looking outfit, I'd hazard a guess that Corsair is pretty likely and that's pretty exciting, at least for me. I'll be excited for the new caster when we actually know something about it besides the fact that it exists.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I really hope that they eliminate the arbitrary subdivision between ranged subtypes so that we can put these complaints to rest. There are six ranged jobs currently (excluding BLU) going on to seven next expansion. There's never been a lack of options for players who want to play at a distance, and it's always is the predominant playstyle in any MMO. Rather than pushing for eight ranged jobs, we really should be adding in more supports, which I hope will be in the next set of additions.

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This is the worst of possible takes.

Caster and Ranged appeal to different types of people, as does Melee. They aren't the same. We saw that when people got furious over BRD having cast times. The Melee all operate in more or less the same BASIC way. They stay in range of the boss, have at least two positionals (I can't think of a Melee that doesn't, though Positionals have also been way toned down, this used to be a lot more), and are all about keeping uptime on the boss by keeping in range (which is somewhat laughably easy with current boss hitboxes).

Ranged, on the other hand, are all about mobility and keeping their GCDs rolling while being able to flex into mechanics that others can't easily get into, while Casters are about maintaining their casting uptime (which is even a thing for SMN, though much less so than RDM and BLM). If anything, the existing homogenization is already bad, since Casters (other than BLM) have lost any semblance of MP management, and MCH has lost the Ranged's sub-role of Support/buffer, which it had back in SB.

We should be more differentiating them, not combining them.

It's also highly limiting to party composition to force MMRC instead of MRCX, the latter of which people seem to prefer since they can build around what they and their friends have instead of having to recruit people/force people to change Jobs.

This "suggestion" almost always seems to come from Melee mains, but you never really see other people supporting the idea of mandatory 2Melee comps...

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Originally Posted by Renathras

This is the worst of possible takes.

Caster and Ranged appeal to different types of people, as does Melee. They aren't the same. We saw that when people got furious over BRD having cast times. The Melee all operate in more or less the same BASIC way. They stay in range of the boss, have at least two positionals (I can't think of a Melee that doesn't, though Positionals have also been way toned down, this used to be a lot more), and are all about keeping uptime on the boss by keeping in range (which is somewhat laughably easy with current boss hitboxes).

Ranged, on the other hand, are all about mobility and keeping their GCDs rolling while being able to flex into mechanics that others can't easily get into, while Casters are about maintaining their casting uptime (which is even a thing for SMN, though much less so than RDM and BLM). If anything, the existing homogenization is already bad, since Casters (other than BLM) have lost any semblance of MP management, and MCH has lost the Ranged's sub-role of Support/buffer, which it had back in SB.

We should be more differentiating them, not combining them.

It's also highly limiting to party composition to force MMRC instead of MRCX, the latter of which people seem to prefer since they can build around what they and their friends have instead of having to recruit people/force people to change Jobs.

This "suggestion" almost always seems to come from Melee mains, but you never really see other people supporting the idea of mandatory 2Melee comps...

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From my limited understanding of things (I raid exclusively as a healer), double melee comps are mostly a thing because melee jobs offer more damage output. If that weren't the case, party compositions would be more flexible. At this point, I don't think it should be the case because boss hitboxes are so gigantic that a ranged tax makes no sense.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

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You might not have noticed this, but raid content is designed around a 2/2/2/2 setup. The standard spread/stack/role/group setups that you do with clock positions and intercards on every fight this expansion reflect this. Tanks and melee intrinsically are disadvantaged for having extra people in melee range unnecessarily because it results in uptime losses. If you were allowed the option of a fully ranged party, you would take it because it would simplify mechanics tremendously and give you a lot of flexibility. If their expected role balance wasn't obvious to you, it's also worth noting that the patch notes explicitly list a 1/1/1/1 setup for Criterion dungeons, where Physical Ranged and Caster are yet again merged into a single category.

It's also worth noting that your complaints around hitbox size, while more valid for Abyssos, have subsequently been addressed in the current tier.

The idea of physical ranged as a sort of inferior version of caster that can 'flex to do mechanics' is something that only caster mains want to perpetuate (and doesn't really happen in practice - the only recent 'physical ranged' specific mechanic that I can think of is Caloric 2, and that's just a case of Casters being able to dump an unwanted mechanic). In practice, caster jobs are 'casters' in all but name only, especially in the wake of the SMN rework. I think if you offered MCH the opportunity to do BLM level dps in exchange for occasionally having to set up a tripod and fire off sniper shots à la leylines, they would take it in a heartbeat. This isn't Heavensward, and with Casters having so many instant cast and movement options at their disposal, I don't think that Physical Ranged would struggle with the occasional hard cast. Even some melee jobs have them, in addition to positionals.

I think rather than treating physical ranged as second-class casters, we'd be much better off if the DPS discrepancies within the ranged role are eliminated. Then we can have all subroles provide equivalent rDPS so that everyone is appropriately valued. Don't worry, the devs will still find ways of stopping you from running that much more comfy triple ranged comp if they decide to equalize things.

We went multiple expansions where double caster was a totally valid comp (and I mean any double caster not one of those casters has to be BLM to act as a melee by proxy) and double physical ranged used to be meta, there is no reason (other than square’s weird love of melee recently) that 2/2/1/2/1 or 2/2/1/1/2 should not be totally valid comps

Caster and phys ranged fill different niches (well at least they did when we actually had mechanics that challenged a role specifically, like the caster/phys ranged bait on O11 that favoured double phys ranged), forcing 2 melee is something only melee mains want because it also makes their mechanics easier and gives them more jobs than they need

I think its just easier to class things as caster and phys range
its just too vague otherwise

I'm only gonna be happy if the new melee is a pirate and the new caster is necromancer.
If not zzz.

Honestly first expansion in a while without a new tank/healer so look forward to longer queue times if they double down on the bad healer/tank design changes. (Healer especially)

People only want two new DPS if they never experienced the 5.0 queue wait times and this time there is no Bozja to save you

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Originally Posted by Lyth

If you were allowed the option of a fully ranged party, you would take it because it would simplify mechanics tremendously and give you a lot of flexibility. If their expected role balance wasn't obvious to you, it's also worth noting that the patch notes explicitly list a 1/1/1/1 setup for Criterion dungeons, where Physical Ranged and Caster are yet again merged into a single category.

The idea of physical ranged as a sort of inferior version of caster that can 'flex to do mechanics' is something that only caster mains want to perpetuate (and doesn't really happen in practice -

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Personally, I think phys ranged are by far the easiest jobs to play in terms of mechanics. But that's fine. If you don't want positionals or a cast bar there you go.

And the Criterion thing just makes sense. You have a tank (melee) and a healer (ranged) on one end and on the other you also have a melee DPS and a ranged job.

The last thing I want to see is breaking down barriers between roles now. The barriers between jobs themselves are miniscule already. No need to spread that to roles, too.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

This is the worst of possible takes.

Caster and Ranged appeal to different types of people, as does Melee. They aren't the same. We saw that when people got furious over BRD having cast times. The Melee all operate in more or less the same BASIC way. They stay in range of the boss, have at least two positionals (I can't think of a Melee that doesn't, though Positionals have also been way toned down, this used to be a lot more), and are all about keeping uptime on the boss by keeping in range (which is somewhat laughably easy with current boss hitboxes).

Ranged, on the other hand, are all about mobility and keeping their GCDs rolling while being able to flex into mechanics that others can't easily get into, while Casters are about maintaining their casting uptime (which is even a thing for SMN, though much less so than RDM and BLM). If anything, the existing homogenization is already bad, since Casters (other than BLM) have lost any semblance of MP management, and MCH has lost the Ranged's sub-role of Support/buffer, which it had back in SB.

We should be more differentiating them, not combining them.

It's also highly limiting to party composition to force MMRC instead of MRCX, the latter of which people seem to prefer since they can build around what they and their friends have instead of having to recruit people/force people to change Jobs.

This "suggestion" almost always seems to come from Melee mains, but you never really see other people supporting the idea of mandatory 2Melee comps...

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I wish we rPhys still had "mechanics that others can't easily do we could flex into" tbh. I remember fondly of O11S during Pantokrator, but those unicorn cases I can count on the fingers of my hand, and honestly haven't seen any like those for ages. And let's face it, to make such a statement be solid and make the role actually a good pick consistently, would ask for almost every savage fight to have at least one of those mechanics... And we're not exactly there, are we, right?

Savage has always been for years about M1, M2, R1 and R2 positions, and R1 and R2 always been interchangeable unfortunately. Even BLM has become a melee somewhat those days...

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Originally Posted by Lyth

You might not have noticed this, but raid content is designed around a 2/2/2/2 setup. The standard spread/stack/role/group setups that you do with clock positions and intercards on every fight this expansion reflect this. Tanks and melee intrinsically are disadvantaged for having extra people in melee range unnecessarily because it results in uptime losses. If you were allowed the option of a fully ranged party, you would take it because it would simplify mechanics tremendously and give you a lot of flexibility. If their expected role balance wasn't obvious to you, it's also worth noting that the patch notes explicitly list a 1/1/1/1 setup for Criterion dungeons, where Physical Ranged and Caster are yet again merged into a single category.

It's also worth noting that your complaints around hitbox size, while more valid for Abyssos, have subsequently been addressed in the current tier.

The idea of physical ranged as a sort of inferior version of caster that can 'flex to do mechanics' is something that only caster mains want to perpetuate (and doesn't really happen in practice - the only recent 'physical ranged' specific mechanic that I can think of is Caloric 2, and that's just a case of Casters being able to dump an unwanted mechanic). In practice, caster jobs are 'casters' in all but name only, especially in the wake of the SMN rework. I think if you offered MCH the opportunity to do BLM level dps in exchange for occasionally having to set up a tripod and fire off sniper shots à la leylines, they would take it in a heartbeat. This isn't Heavensward, and with Casters having so many instant cast and movement options at their disposal, I don't think that Physical Ranged would struggle with the occasional hard cast. Even some melee jobs have them, in addition to positionals.

I think rather than treating physical ranged as second-class casters, we'd be much better off if the DPS discrepancies within the ranged role are eliminated. Then we can have all subroles provide equivalent rDPS so that everyone is appropriately valued. Don't worry, the devs will still find ways of stopping you from running that much more comfy triple ranged comp if they decide to equalize things.

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Yeah as a rPhys player I can confirm, at this point I'll take anything to not be a subpar BLM or melee that's just here for the 1% party bonus (let's not kid ourselves for a minute). My job, except perhaps for DNC and even then, is way harder to execute than SMN. Anybody trying to convince me that BRD optimization is easy on top of getting all your GCDs under RS is not tight as heck can go eat a karakul as far as i'm concerned, and I'm not even speaking about how reliant you are on your team damage not to suck, else your 15% rDPS coming from your mates is gonna look more like a 1.5%... And while positioning and movement may be not a problem, I'm sorry but some of those rotations aren't exactly easier than RDM either.

But hey, I guess they're not faring exactly better this expansion hah. Maybe it's a silver lining in a way because it makes people actually talk about it. It's not just rphys anymore, it's the whole ranged dps community.

I'd say something along the lines of ''sad tank main noises'' but we all know how stupidly similar healers and tanks all are now.
A new tank would just be warrior but worse, and a healer would just be a carbon copy of whm like sage was a carbon copy of sch.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Caster and Ranged appeal to different types of people, as does Melee. They aren't the same. We saw that when people got furious over BRD having cast times.

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Hot take but I don't think that a physr having a cast time is inherently a bad idea. Honestly if they brought back cast times with a rework for bard or with a new physr and made it like how it is in pvp where they can still walk while casting, I think that would be pretty neat.

Hey if all ranged had cast times I'd be down. Honestly I'm of the opinion that casters should be casting more, although Endwalker's fight design often forgets it has players who don't have infinite movement options.

Personally I'm interested to see what the new caster is and what they plan to do. Cynically I see them moving in the opposite direction Lyth would like, instead of merging the ranged altogether (which I disagree with but I'm just a caster / melee main so I guess I'm biased :shrug:) they're instead gonna crack the caster role in half along the lines of "raise caster" and "damage caster."

In my ideal world raise is just removed from the role and damage is overall increased but that's because I think casters need to either be as mobile as phys ranged or do more damage, because otherwise they get completely dropped from meta as has happened for almost two entire expansions in a row. Heck even today you can see the most popular "caster" by far has no cast times basically, SMN's savage population totalling RDM's and BLM's combined. And when they keep designing fights like casters are all as mobile as SMN I can see why; Program Loop and Panto are absolute nightmares in TOP, Abyssos was relentless in its hatred of casters, and I can see a few mechanics in Anabeisos that would be frustrating but I got to melee this tier and lemme tell you its been blessedly easy as melee.

My other chief worry is that they'll keep adding insta casts to casters and making them more mobile, which if they all become as mobile as SMN instead of them kneecapping SMN and stealing their nikes, then yeah their damage should have parity with phys ranged. Like they currently do bar BLM I guess.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

In my ideal world raise is just removed from the role and damage is overall increased but that's because I think casters need to either be as mobile as phys ranged or do more damage, because otherwise they get completely dropped from meta as has happened for almost two entire expansions in a row. Heck even today you can see the most popular "caster" by far has no cast times basically, SMN's savage population totalling RDM's and BLM's combined. And when they keep designing fights like casters are all as mobile as SMN I can see why; Program Loop and Panto are absolute nightmares in TOP, Abyssos was relentless in its hatred of casters, and I can see a few mechanics in Anabeisos that would be frustrating but I got to melee this tier and lemme tell you its been blessedly easy as melee.

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Dude omg I feel so heard right now. P12S is so unfriendly to Red Mage's burst window since I'm required to be in melee range for my burst. Weeeeeelllll Superchain Theory I and Caloric II both involve R2 being removed from the boss so my damage gets fucked both times unless I have the group adjust for me, and even then I do less damage than I do when I switch to Summoner. Something has to give, either they lean away from the melee phase that sorta defines the job and is honestly super fun to do for movement or change fight design to allow more leniency in spacing, which they DEFINITELY wont do. Wouldn't be surprised if we got a mini rework

Combining PhysRanged and MagicRanged into one 'Ranged' category would not necessitate adding cast times to the Physical Ranged jobs. It'd just mean that a party would be looking for 2 tanks/healers/melee/ranged. How often have people been in PF, looking for one slot to fill, going 'does anyone in this game still play ranged, we'll even take a MCH come onnnnn'? I've also had to be in the position of telling someone 'sorry, we need a Physranged for the 1%' in prog, because that 1% is what will get us past enrage, and getting a 2Melee/RDM/SMN comp would mean we're below the check, and that feels terrible

Besides that, SMN is now down to 4 cast times per minute (3 if you swiftcast one), yet it remains in the 'Caster' role, because it's not actually a 'Caster', but a 'Magical Ranged DPS'. Cast times are not inherent to any particular role, the main damage type they use is what differentiates them. Else we'd have to call RPR and SAM some kind of 'Caster' thanks to Iaijutsu and Communio, and that would be silly

Personally I'd be fine with the 2 ranged archetypes combining, because I'm really not a fan of a role being kept on lifesupport for raiding by the fact it brings 1% stat boost to the group. 'A certain other MMO' does not make the distinction between it's physical ranged and magic ranged specs (well, Hunter's the only Phys they have, I guess), I've never known why we do

I wish I had your problems, Forsaken, rather than issues of "why would we accept you into the party as RDM, you do less damage than every phys ranged but dancer and you're a liability to the group and its strats compared to the free running SMN". Personally I've never really the issue you do, its fairly easy to find a smn and a phys ranged.

Also yes, we do colloquially call them casters but in reality they're called magical ranged. My stance remains that magical ranged dps should be bound tightly by casting mechanics, (EDIT: and the place smn is in right now is a travesty for many reasons) but any world where they're competing with phys ranged for a spot will necessitate SMN levels of mobility (barf) because by the time casters have enough for the mobility cost to be diminished the phys ranged are launched from the see-saw.

And I feel you Rychu. Red Mages have it tough a lot of the time this expac. Ironic that this game so melee-heavy screws the melee-caster over so bad.

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Originally Posted by Rychu

Dude omg I feel so heard right now. P12S is so unfriendly to Red Mage's burst window since I'm required to be in melee range for my burst. Weeeeeelllll Superchain Theory I and Caloric II both involve R2 being removed from the boss so my damage gets fucked both times unless I have the group adjust for me, and even then I do less damage than I do when I switch to Summoner. Something has to give, either they lean away from the melee phase that sorta defines the job and is honestly super fun to do for movement or change fight design to allow more leniency in spacing, which they DEFINITELY wont do. Wouldn't be surprised if we got a mini rework

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Feels like a lot of fights this ends up happening,2minute burst comes around and its time for mechanics with strict positions and you are placed out of range every time, and every time it feels awful.

At this point the only things I want for RDM skill wise in the new expansion is reskinned melee combos with additional range, I mean they are utilizing magic right?
That and a personal shield so I don't fall over to unavoidable raidwides that everyone else lives,with the rest of my group asking if I flipped into the wall or something.

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Originally Posted by Rychu

Hot take but I don't think that a physr having a cast time is inherently a bad idea. Honestly if they brought back cast times with a rework for bard or with a new physr and made it like how it is in pvp where they can still walk while casting, I think that would be pretty neat.

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Perhaps.

I'd have just been okay with SAM/RPR like casts: 1.5s cast for Apex Arrow, 1s cast for Drill, Anchor, Chainsaw... Perhaps a cast time for Starfall, but DNC burst can sometimes get crammed to the brim with things to weave already.

But that won't honestly change anything. It's not gonna be a huge constraint at all (are Iajutsus or Communio really a hurdle to overcome? lolno), and it's gonna be obvious to everyone that nothing will change in terms of balance, unless they really turn every rphys into a proper caster (HW style). And i'm staunchly opposed to that. I don't play rphys to spend my time casting, else I'd play a caster. I play it for proc/priorities and hopefully engaging rotations, which it has... kinda lost over time sadly.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

Hey if all ranged had cast times I'd be down.

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How about NO? I don't want to play a caster, thanks.

Give me iajutsu like moves, or some pvp cast times SPARSELY, I'm game, but don't turn me into an actual caster.

And tbh it's not gonna happen due to the backlash it would generate, like back in HW. They learned the lesson, but people are quick to forget.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

Honestly I'm of the opinion that casters should be casting more, although Endwalker's fight design often forgets it has players who don't have infinite movement options.

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Agreed. Rphys rotations should make up for it by being more complex and engaging like they used to be.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

they're instead gonna crack the caster role in half along the lines of "raise caster" and "damage caster."

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That's already kinda the case and it's the stuff of balance nightmares.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

because otherwise they get completely dropped from meta as has happened for almost two entire expansions in a row.

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Only Endwalker. Casters have strived in ShB and were able to match the top group of damage dealers (aka melees), with perhaps the exception of RDM that has always lagged behind historically since its inception, but was still able to out damage any rphys job period, until EW/today (rip RDM, always in the grave). Anyway, welcome to the mobility tax hell, SMN friendos. I'm sure you like it as much as we do.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

Program Loop and Panto are absolute nightmares in TOP, Abyssos was relentless in its hatred of casters, and I can see a few mechanics in Anabeisos that would be frustrating but I got to melee this tier and lemme tell you its been blessedly easy as melee.

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That's a bit rose tinted. Savage Pantokrator was already a mobility annoyance for every caster in existence (healers included). And that's not the only mechanic of before ShB/EW. The only savages were mobility was less of a thing in my opinion happened before SB.

You also have to take into consideration that every caster had a lot less mobility tools, BLM included (esp BLM). How did people cope with it? They just did, and had not full uptime, but those days, it frustrates people just to think about it.

Let me start on the last bit: "in TOP." The latest Ultimate released in Endwalker based on Stormblood raids. Unless you really are just talking about pre-ShB raiding in which case I apologize, Panto being prominent in both is a bit of a difficult thing to interpret.

I don't disagree but for most of Stormblood and Heavensward you had the piercing meta, and thus usually ran no caster DPS at all. Heavensward and Stormblood, of course, being the two expansions I mean when I say that casters vanished from meta teams entirely up until late Stormblood where Summoner started to attain some popularity. So really most didn't cope with it and did fine because you just didn't take a casting dps in the first place.

Now re: cast times) that's fair enough, and in the world we're in where phys range and magic range aren't vying for the same spot I agree. In lieu of that, more complex rotations is a good substitute. I'll always miss StB MCH.

Re: raise) I know and I hate it as well, I don't think that would stop SE from officiating it and then pretending all is well.

Re: endwalker) nope. Throughout most of HW and StB the piercing meta was in full effect and there was no good reason to take a caster who had to suffer cast times when you could roll deep with piercing drg, mch and brd and bouncing crit buffs back and forth across each other (brd, drg and sch). It was supremely busted and very hard to keep up with for the non phys ranged, although Summoner eventually did.

What I will add though is I don't want casters to lose casting any more than you want phys ranged to have it. I'm not advocating for any of that, however I am saying that EW fight design tends to pack tons of movement mechanics back to back with little regard for any caster not named SMN. Not every mechanic is terrible but standouts off the top of my head are p7s's marathoning back and forth, p4s's pinax, p8s' fourfold flames (especially how pugs do it), TOP's well, all of p1 sucks for anyone with cast times (hell even SAM has issues at points).

I defer to Rychu for Anabeisos struggles since I haven't had the pleasure of casting this tier, although I can imagine how bad superchain 1 and cal 2 screw RDM over in specific.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Agreed. Rphys rotations should make up for it by being more complex and engaging like they used to be.

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Ranged dps suffers from the issue of being the middle between the 2: Casters have cast times, melee has positionals. Both mechanics that make positioning themselve as part of the balance. By not having such restriction, you generaly will only end up with the rotation itself as downtime by forced movement isnt an issue. And micro positioning which a melee dps often can do usualy also barely matters (wall boss, or the boss barely rotates because the tank rarely needs to dodge in such way it causes boss rotations).

To me the best way to solve the ranged dps issue, is by introducing some sort of positional system in them.

Something like a minimum range: being further away increases damage, but increases risks of extended downtime when you need to move out of the way. Automaticly also giving a certain situation in which you can be sure they are prefered, or discouraged. Damage at that point then can be allowed to exceed other jobs since depending on the fight, you might not be able to use that, or since it gets used more often might promote it.

You can also simply make it 2 buttons: close range/long range and force the players to alternate them for higher damage. This makes a certain distance from the boss optimal, and can provide similar restrictions to the melee dpses (like wall bosses not providing a back).

"Let's add a bunch of instant casts to casters so they can move around in our cardio-heavy constant movement modern fight design. Now that they're more mobile let's make sure their damage remains lower relative to the melee (except BLM, lol)"
"Let's delete a bunch of positionals, add more stacks to True North, add a TN effect to a Dragoon ability, and blow up boss hitboxes so melee never have to lose uptime. Oh, and if they would ever lose uptime due to mechanics vomit, we'll just make the boss untargetable so everyone loses damage. Now let's buff the crap out of their damage so they do way more than the ranged, because this makes sense".

It's the naked double standard. All of this faff about "damage is balanced intra-role" is a fat load of bull. It wasn't like this in Shadowbringers. But now that the melee are doing way more than everyone else, *suddenly* you'll hear all the melee mains claim damage "should" be balanced this way for...comp reasons or something, because that second slot should always be melee.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

"Let's add a bunch of instant casts to casters so they can move around in our cardio-heavy constant movement modern fight design. Now that they're more mobile let's make sure their damage remains lower relative to the melee (except BLM, lol)"
"Let's delete a bunch of positionals, add more stacks to True North, add a TN effect to a Dragoon ability, and blow up boss hitboxes so melee never have to lose uptime. Oh, and if they would ever lose uptime due to mechanics vomit, we'll just make the boss untargetable so everyone loses damage. Now let's buff the crap out of their damage so they do way more than the ranged, because this makes sense".

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Yeah I don't really get this, I really don't know how anyone can look at all of theses facts and say "Yeah this is how it should be".
The fact that the biggest complaint melee seems to have atm is related to Kaiten being removed is really telling I think, even despite Square rebalancing their abilities to make up for its removal.

Endwalker has massively coddled melee to the point that as a RDM,7.0 has me more scared than excited for how the gameplay develops further, RDM and BLM being given the SMN treatment, or just more of the same neglt.ec

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Originally Posted by kayll

Endwalker has massively coddled melee to the point that as a RDM,7.0 has me more scared than excited for how the gameplay develops further, RDM and BLM being given the SMN treatment, or just more of the same neglt.ec

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Ehhhhh dont worry about it mate, we'll get what RDM's always wanted in 7.0 I promise. another finisher after resolution further fucking up the burst window, a shield mitigation that can be put on anyone but ourselves, and verfire and stone II that function exactly the same but with 20 more potency....

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Originally Posted by kayll

The fact that the biggest complaint melee seems to have atm is related to Kaiten being removed is really telling I think, even despite Square rebalancing their abilities to make up for its removal.

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They rebalanced SAM to deal more damage with basic GCDs and less with the big attacks, which is contradictory to the class fantasy. If they simply wanted to remove Kaiten, they would need to do just handful of potency changes, but they did about 21 of those changes in single patch. Midare deals just like 2.5x as much as regular GCD. Most importantly, now on average every 5th skill you use is Shinten. Imagine that RDM has a bland, uninteresting oGCD, and each spell builds gauge that is pretty much used only for this skill, and the gauge generation is so high that you spend 20% of all actions on using this boring spell. This is the state of SAM.

I understand that casters, and especially RDM really feels like devs' unwanted child, but that doesn't mean that we as players should point fingers and antagonize each other. I really don't think that any sensible players asked for SMN to become pranged, for RDM to be taxed to oblivion for a verraise, which is barely any better than single use ress, or any of the questionable changes EW brought.

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Originally Posted by Deo14

They rebalanced SAM to deal more damage with basic GCDs and less with the big attacks, which is contradictory to the class fantasy. If they simply wanted to remove Kaiten, they would need to do just handful of potency changes, but they did about 21 of those changes in single patch. Midare deals just like 2.5x as much as regular GCD. Most importantly, now on average every 5th skill you use is Shinten. Imagine that RDM has a bland, uninteresting oGCD, and each spell builds gauge that is pretty much used only for this skill, and the gauge generation is so high that you spend 20% of all actions on using this boring spell. This is the state of SAM.

I understand that casters, and especially RDM really feels like devs' unwanted child, but that doesn't mean that we as players should point fingers and antagonize each other. I really don't think that any sensible players asked for SMN to become pranged, for RDM to be taxed to oblivion for a verraise, which is barely any better than single use ress, or any of the questionable changes EW brought.

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I didn't point fingers, just pointed out a comparison, but most of the dumb changes are due to Square listening to player complaints so I think its warranted nonetheless.
"It just doesn't feel the same anymore"
vs
"I literally can not play my class like everyone else because encounters are actively hostile to my class design"

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

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Not necessarily. I've repeatedly argued that all DPS jobs should have similar rDPS values, and I'd be happy if they put everyone on a level playing field next expansion.

Job 'difficulty' is a very personal, subjective experience. You're of course naturally going to argue that casters are 'more difficult' to play than any other subrole, and thus should be rewarded with higher damage numbers and triple ranged comps at baseline. But is that perceived 'difficulty' on casters a function of having a protracted progression experience in P10S? Are there elements of that 'difficulty' that could be softened through repeated practice and self-improvement on a personal level?

The other issue is when you take that personal sense of 'superior difficulty' and force that view on to others, it actually makes the gameplay experience worse across the board for the community. I remember that you didn't like WHM being treated as the 'easy' healer by the community very much. Why propagate that experience on to others? All subroles should be in a place of mutual respect. Rather than finding reasons to justify discrepancies between subroles, we really should be finding ways to justify eliminating them.

If you shrunk boss hitbox sizes, had more boss movement, and even had mechanics to physically force you off the boss, a lot of melee would enjoy that. Forced downtime is a skill differentiator, because then you see melee who are good at using movement actions really excel over everyone else. It's actually funny that Criterion of all things does this better than the raid tier.

Likewise, physical ranged would probably have no objection to taking on additional skill checks if it means doing the same rDPS as melee. You want them to do double the CPM of casters? Juggle double the procs? Intermittent casts in the form of charged sniper shots? Ranged positionals? Actions that cannot be executed at proximity? Some of the most talented players I've met have actually been physical ranged, so I have no doubt they'll rise to the occasion, regardless of what you throw at them.

I also think that these constant complaints around 'difficulty' are what's at the center for eliminating skill checks on every role. When you complain about a 'cardio-heavy' movement fight design that's hard on casters, they turn around and start removing your cast bars. Resource management too difficult? They might as well remove MP next expansion. Random number generators holding you back? No problem, all your big hits are now guaranteed Crit/DH. Every time you complain, you think they're going to buff your job so that you can clear more fights. Every time you complain, they remove skill checks from everyone. Take pride in your skill checks. Demand more.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

Let me start on the last bit: "in TOP." The latest Ultimate released in Endwalker based on Stormblood raids. Unless you really are just talking about pre-ShB raiding in which case I apologize, Panto being prominent in both is a bit of a difficult thing to interpret.


I don't disagree but for most of Stormblood and Heavensward you had the piercing meta, and thus usually ran no caster DPS at all. Heavensward and Stormblood, of course, being the two expansions I mean when I say that casters vanished from meta teams entirely up until late Stormblood where Summoner started to attain some popularity. So really most didn't cope with it and did fine because you just didn't take a casting dps in the first place.

Now re: cast times) that's fair enough, and in the world we're in where phys range and magic range aren't vying for the same spot I agree. In lieu of that, more complex rotations is a good substitute. I'll always miss StB MCH.

Re: raise) I know and I hate it as well, I don't think that would stop SE from officiating it and then pretending all is well.

Re: endwalker) nope. Throughout most of HW and StB the piercing meta was in full effect and there was no good reason to take a caster who had to suffer cast times when you could roll deep with piercing drg, mch and brd and bouncing crit buffs back and forth across each other (brd, drg and sch). It was supremely busted and very hard to keep up with for the non phys ranged, although Summoner eventually did.

What I will add though is I don't want casters to lose casting any more than you want phys ranged to have it. I'm not advocating for any of that, however I am saying that EW fight design tends to pack tons of movement mechanics back to back with little regard for any caster not named SMN. Not every mechanic is terrible but standouts off the top of my head are p7s's marathoning back and forth, p4s's pinax, p8s' fourfold flames (especially how pugs do it), TOP's well, all of p1 sucks for anyone with cast times (hell even SAM has issues at points).

I defer to Rychu for Anabeisos struggles since I haven't had the pleasure of casting this tier, although I can imagine how bad superchain 1 and cal 2 screw RDM over in specific.

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Far enough for the piercing meta, I had kept in mind SMN topping charts (even in HW) but I suppose it was not a regular happenstance.

I do play rphys and even I find that everything those days is always about players running all around all the time, and more more and more with pixel perfect invisible telegraphs and bullshit stuff like Bonds 3. I'd perhaps suggest that it's not that we have bigger bursts of mobility, but it's that comparatively it feels to me like we're constantly asked to do it with pinpoint accuracy everywhere combined with body checks tied to it everywhere, where in the past we had longer times where we could stand still and take a breath.

Sometimes I do feel that the fight design of the game encounters, which is all about moving around, often conflicts with casting uptime. I'm obviously biased as a rphys player, but it makes me literally die inside how it makes the game unfun. I'd feel that casters would thrive a lot more into something that actually looks more to a RPG than a DDR offshoot. Don't hate me.

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Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

Ranged dps suffers from the issue of being the middle between the 2: Casters have cast times, melee has positionals. Both mechanics that make positioning themselve as part of the balance. By not having such restriction, you generaly will only end up with the rotation itself as downtime by forced movement isnt an issue. And micro positioning which a melee dps often can do usualy also barely matters (wall boss, or the boss barely rotates because the tank rarely needs to dodge in such way it causes boss rotations).

To me the best way to solve the ranged dps issue, is by introducing some sort of positional system in them.

Something like a minimum range: being further away increases damage, but increases risks of extended downtime when you need to move out of the way. Automaticly also giving a certain situation in which you can be sure they are prefered, or discouraged. Damage at that point then can be allowed to exceed other jobs since depending on the fight, you might not be able to use that, or since it gets used more often might promote it.

You can also simply make it 2 buttons: close range/long range and force the players to alternate them for higher damage. This makes a certain distance from the boss optimal, and can provide similar restrictions to the melee dpses (like wall bosses not providing a back).

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Screw positionals. I hate them. That's why I play rphys.

The problem with that kind of positionals is that it will make every healer scream in pain and secretly hating any rphys player for standing in narnia. Another problem with which I don't trust SE at all is the UI, because this game UI has always been medieval especially when it comes to feedbacks. It's already a pain with melee DPS positionals... How do you want to play through ranged positionals without huge grids and radiuses covering our screens clearly showing where we're in the green, good dps area, and where we're not? This is already a problem with pvp BRD right now, and DRG a little as well.

I'm however very much okay with close and long range skills, which DNC used to have during its bursts in ShB and lost for the bland Starfall and Tilana designs we have in EW. It worked very well, but I doubt it was really a consideration into damage output balance either. Do we want to add this on every skill they have? Then we run into a problem, because filler shots can't else you'd just screw every time they have to be close, and if it's making filler shots close range, then rphys just becomes a glorified melee.

So, where would this work? For MCH, probably on Tools (Drill long range, Chainsaw short range with a damage falloff the furthest away targets are), for BRD probably on Apex/Blast (long range), and DNC probably on Tilana and Starfall.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

People only want two new DPS if they never experienced the 5.0 queue wait times and this time there is no Bozja to save you

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5.0 added a tank as well, it was 4.0 that added two new DPS and yes the queue times for DPS role were insane during that expansion.

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Originally Posted by Sequora

I would prefer the new caster to be closer to BLM in terms of function. High damage low on on the utility scale.

I want another caster that isn’t a Rez mage and therefore isn’t paying a tax so it can compete with black mage, when adding in a small amount of damage utility.

Summoner used to compete once upon a time.

I’m a little bummed with all the hype in the new melee job. It’s all the content creators are talking about.

We just got a melee job, in an expansion that was heavily melee focused.

I really want the developers to give casters some love.

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On top of a BLM rework to drop the skill floor out from under it, and probably give BLM an actual gimmick, as sitting still and casting slow spells shouldn't be a gimmick unique to BLM. While also dropping the sheer amount of movement BLM has. I didn't start playing BLM to pretend I was a bard that was bad at its job, and I don't want the tools to be a bard that's bad at their job as then the devs will use it as an excuse to do it.

Also, I will always maintain this stance. Either every caster should have a res with some form of limit, or no caster should have a res. People shouldn't choose to take or not take a class because of its access to ressing, and even if it removes that role from the game, I'd much rather it just didn't exist and they made fights with the expectation that only healers could res.

Moving a step further, looking at Delubrum Reginae Savage which, alongside TEA and E3S/E4S represents some of the best actual fights the game has ever had, having no resses with punishment for repeated mistakes is more interesting than the current system of "Well, people have resses but we want mechanics to sting, guess people will wipe from 1 person making a mistake."