Setting sights on the future of physical ranged DPS

I want to collect my thoughts, feedback and in-game observations into a thread, and hopefully get some gears turning on the possibilities for the Physical Ranged DPS role.

To start, there are PVP achievements for winning Crystalline Conflict matches as a physical ranged DPS. The achievent for winning 1000 matches as a phys ranged DPS is called "A Sniper to Remember," and the achievements leading up to it are called "A Wolf in Green Tights I-IV" likely as a reference to Robin Hood. This seem like a recent point of view that the developers have about the phys ranged roles like they want the class fantasy to be that of a sharpshooter/marksman/ranger.

Another recent development that has come out of PVP is the mechanic of walking casts. This mechanic is only present on BRD and MCH. Certain actions have cast times, but you can still move while casting at a reduced speed. The mechanic really feels like you are taking the time to aim each shot to maximize damage without it feeling like you are a magical ranged DPS. The physicality of "aiming” versus spell casting feels very different. And because walking casts are affected by abilities that increase movement speed, there could be some interactions with Peloton.

In the melee role quest solo battle in Endwalker, players fight alongside Merlwyb, and Lorens, two characters who use guns. Though out the fight Merlwyb, and Lorens have to interact with positional mechanics along with the player despite them basically being phys ranged DPS characters. However, in the Endwalker phys ranged solo battle, there are no positionals. But in the Dawntrail physical ranged role quest solo battle the player is asked to do postionals, and weirdly enough positionals are not present in the melee solo battle. This entertains the idea making positionals a gameplay mechanic for phys ranged DPS or that it is just a physical damage mechanic which since Shadowbringers, physical ranged, and melee DPS have been lumped together as "Physical DPS" in artifact gear vendors.

To me, the marksman is a missing class archetype in PVE. We have tanks, healers, fighters, and mages that provide mostly unique gameplay styles, and gameplay challenges to overcome, but the marksman is underdeveloped, and basically non-existent. I think walking casts can solve the bulk of gameplay, and balance issues that have been weighing down physical ranged DPS, and they should have been in PVE like yesterday. The biggest issue with walking casts is being able to cancel them, but I’m sure there are solutions to that floating around.

However, I’m skeptical about postionals from personal taste, and because it would mean that phys ranged would be subjected to boss hit box problems like with melee DPS. But despite that I think positionals do sell the idea of aiming at an enemy’s weak points to maximize damage. Maybe phys ranged could only have front positionals because ‘boom! headshot’ or something. Maybe there is a middle ground with walking casts, and positionals. Mechanically, phys ranged DPS feel very isolated from the other roles, and I think some mechanical cross pollination would healthy for the role. I’m willing to compromise.

I’m also skeptical about giving phys ranged more support tools or forcing them to be a support role because I feel like healers are already experiencing power creep as well.

I think devs should be taking inspiration from various shooter games on how to fix this role. I think the role that uses ranged weapons like bows, and guns, and other projectiles, and uses gear labeled ‘aiming’ should have more aiming style mechanics that can be translated over FFXIV’s GCD, and tab target style gameplay. Just simply being able to hit an enemy from afar does not provide enough gameplay. I’m likely just seeing patterns, but I feel like there are a lot of pieces in place to do something pretty cool with physical ranged DPS, and it is the developer’s job to make these decisions.

I don't think your ideal view of the role fits what I like about the game, but perhaps I'm the odd one left behind by a changing design that only cares about uptime/cast times and positionals. If turning rphys into positional casters is the future of the game in pve and alienating all the players that played the role specifically because they weren't interested into those mechanics, then I dread seeing it come true. I'd be curious to see the reaction however, if we'd get a similar riot than we had in HW when cast times were introduced to the role, or not. Perhaps the player base has changed significantly since then.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I don't think your ideal view of the role fits what I like about the game, but perhaps I'm the odd one left behind by a changing design that only cares about uptime/cast times and positionals. If turning rphys into positional casters is the future of the game in pve and alienating all the players that played the role specifically because they weren't interested into those mechanics, then I dread seeing it come true. I'd be curious to see the reaction however, if we'd get a similar riot than we had in HW when cast times were introduced to the role, or not. Perhaps the player base has changed significantly since then.

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I do think that they have gotten better at designing jobs with cast times. Like if 'bow mage' or 'gun mage' were released today, they would play wildly different than they did in HW, and there wouldn't be as much backlash -- if anything there would be complaints that they're too easy play like usual. It probably is just apophenia, but to me the conceptual, and mechanical explorations in PVP, and role quest battles kinda make a little too much sense for the role. They're not even my ideas, I'm just drawing subtext from what's in the game right now.

I think with Dancer and Bard they initially aimed for ranged to be the "Proc based" role.
Even Machinist used to have procs.

Only bowmage saw a backlash as it wasn't initially designed with casts in mind, Gunmage felt great.
But yes, currently they're basically "melees without melee range" or "casters with not casts". It would be good to have something exclusive to ranged rather than copying something from another role.

Procs I would not like because I feel other roles suffer if they keep being beholden to the "static rotation"-style of class design.

That is to say, there absolutely need to be melees, casters, tanks and healers based on random abilities and procs (not the same thing btw). Otherwise we just see the devs run out of design space way too quick. Just look at the 6 melee jobs having maybe 2,5 classes of design space between all of them.

But "bowmage" is interesting as a design. A cast-bar during which you can move, but more slowly. This could be what the physical ranged jobs do, they are fully mobile, but slower while casting, and one could go a step further and say it's never their main rotation that has these, but ~all extra abilities would, basically fully mobile during filler and reducied-mobility during extra casts (the opposite of how most casters work!).

Then further, one could be proc based (which Dancer is not as a design archetype, they're priority based, their procs are a secondary design element that changes surprisingly little in underlying design), one could be priority based which we already have, one could be static in nature.

I've been robbed of my procs and ammo on MCH for.. whatever this underperforming dumpster fire of a job is those days. I want them back.

Also if you want to see how moving very slowly or not moving at all makes zero difference, go try it in pvp. Same thing in pve, you're either fast enough to move out of the bad goo or to the next mechanical position, or you're not.

The thing is RDM, and MNK have procs in their rotations with Verfire, and Verstone procs, and the chakra gauge filling off weapon skills randomly critting. Randomness is not exclusive to phys ranged. RDM, and yes, SMN have melee attacks as well. SAM, and RPR have weapon skills, and spells with cast times. PLD has spells with cast times, and SGE has melee ranged spells. There is already mechanical intermingling between the roles, except for phys ranged. The phys ranged role is kept isolated for whatever reason. I think that phys ranged could open up, and utilize mechanics from the other roles even if it meant that the physical ranged role became more of a generalist damage role instead of this pseudo kinda vaguely specialist role. It would open up a lot of design space for the role.

I think another aiming style mechanic that could be entertained for phys ranged would be having attacks that that shoot out projectiles that have a travel time, but I'm sure that will be prone to a lot of frustrating latency jank.

Is there a melee with slow walk cast times on its base combo? Is there a caster with positionals? And if deterministic rotations are shared by many roles, does it mean that it was ok for MCH to be deprived of its procs and rng (especially when rng/proc jobs are starting to become an endangered species)?

There is a world of difference between iajutsu/communio and cast times on the base filler but I feel this is restarting a conversation just for the sake of beating up a dead horse.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Is there a melee with slow walk cast times on its base combo? Is there a caster with positionals? And if deterministic rotations are shared by many roles, does it mean that it was ok for MCH to be deprived of its procs and rng (especially when rng/proc jobs are starting to become an endangered species)?

There is a world of difference between iajutsu/communio and cast times on the base filler but I feel this is restarting a conversation just for the sake of beating up a dead horse.

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Blue Mage can learn a spell with a front positional that makes tank builds significantly more playable. PLD's main filler combo does interact with a cast spell, but it grants a buff to make it instant. I could be wrong, but I think hard casting Holy Spirit takes priority over using Shield Lob in situations where PLD has to disengage, and they don't have Divine Might. So yeah, PLD can have a spell cast in its filler repertoire. RPR too with Harpe, but I hear it is significantly more janky to use well. Walking casts are not in PVE yet, but they should be. A melee that has a walking cast as part of its filler combo could be a lot of fun, and would definitely stand out against the other melees. They could also rework NIN's TCJ ability to utilize walking casts to make the skill not so fragile to use.

You're correct, it used to be a ranged thing.
RDM and Chakra RNG were added in Stormblood where they removed cast time from BRD/MCH.
In HW it was mostly a phys ranged thing, BLM had some light RNG element, moving away from its ARR big RNG iteration.

I'm still curious actually. What would caster DPS think about getting positionals on their jobs? Or as you just proposed, a melee with slow casts on their main filler? Are you sure that's what people would like to play with?

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Originally Posted by Valence

I'm still curious actually. What would caster DPS think about getting positionals on their jobs? Or as you just proposed, a melee with slow casts on their main filler? Are you sure that's what people would like to play with?

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Personally, It Depends™️.

Back/Flank positionals would be weird. Yeah we all stack in melee range anyways so it's not a big deal 99% of the time, but it's a bit constructed. A casting tank would automatically be fine with front positionals but they'd also be utterly pointless I suppose. What would be interesting would be if such a caster had a codified system of Near and Far positionals instead. We already have far-type stuff on PvP Bards, and near-type indirectly on how the Red Mage melee combo interrupts your casting, so I guess we have precedent for both, but as a variable concept on a caster with actual cast bars it'd be super funky to explore. I'd love that.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I'm still curious actually. What would caster DPS think about getting positionals on their jobs? Or as you just proposed, a melee with slow casts on their main filler? Are you sure that's what people would like to play with?

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I feel like a melee walking cast could be useful for conveying that the weapon, and attack is a little unwieldy, and has a ton of weight to it, like maybe it could work with DRK or a hypothetical big hammer job.

My biggest issue with the walking casts for PVE argument on ranged physical is it doesnt take into account one of the most important parts of what makes these jobs fun, the sheer amount of oGCD abilities they have. If you take give Bard and Machinist walking casts, but they are now no longer able to double weave during their burst phases, you essentially just ruined the job entirely. Honestly with how busy dancer has become in its burst window, it would be awful too.

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Originally Posted by Rika007

My biggest issue with the walking casts for PVE argument on ranged physical is it doesnt take into account one of the most important parts of what makes these jobs fun, the sheer amount of oGCD abilities they have. If you take give Bard and Machinist walking casts, but they are now no longer able to double weave during their burst phases, you essentially just ruined the job entirely. Honestly with how busy dancer has become in its burst window, it would be awful too.

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Not all GCDs would be or should be walking casts. Not even BLM or PCT, the most casteriest of casters have cast times on all their spells. Like for BRD, GCDs like Refulgent Arrow, Resonant Arrow, Apex, and Blast Arrow, Radiant Encore, and its dots should remain instant while Burst Shot becomes a walking cast. They could cut the cooldown of Barrage in half so it could have more instant GCDs every minute for movement, and weaving space. I think lining up instant GCDs for double weaves is kind of an aiming-adjacent playstyle because it is like threading a needle, and does require some finesse, and should be considered in phys ranged design even with walking casts.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

Personally, It Depends™️.

Back/Flank positionals would be weird. Yeah we all stack in melee range anyways so it's not a big deal 99% of the time, but it's a bit constructed. A casting tank would automatically be fine with front positionals but they'd also be utterly pointless I suppose. What would be interesting would be if such a caster had a codified system of Near and Far positionals instead. We already have far-type stuff on PvP Bards, and near-type indirectly on how the Red Mage melee combo interrupts your casting, so I guess we have precedent for both, but as a variable concept on a caster with actual cast bars it'd be super funky to explore. I'd love that.

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And then you end up on P7, P8 or Valigarmanda and just can't do any of the "Far" positionals.
There's a lot of mechanics that forces the player to stay in near melee range for share purpose, even M4S has phases where you're forced to remain at close range for a long time.

A Near/Far has been a debate in the past and we quickly figured there would be too much conflict with melee DPS, Healer range (just think about Sacred Soil or Asylum) or game mechanics.

Thematically, I would just like them to split archer into bard and ranger. Our current bard is barely a bard, so move most of the bardic toolkit into ranger and instead have bard focus on songs. The dots both could be songs the fact they are shots in the first place make 0 sense for a bard, the current partywide buff could be its own song and the buffs they give us could be different songs as well. A lot of our attack could also be done via songs. There is already a precedent for song based attacks in games like ff4. Plus lb3 should be more bardic themed instead of a bunch of arrows. As it stands now I don't think the person who designed bard knows what a bard is. We should be using songs and instruments much more than our bows.

Ranger could have the majority of the current toolkit and maybe add pets that show up for an attack and then disappear. Have a hawk swoop in for a quick attack. Have a bear rise up, swipe and then disappear. Have a dog charge through and bite (You're such a good boy, Interceptor).

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Originally Posted by AnimaAnimus

Thematically, I would just like them to split archer into bard and ranger. Our current bard is barely a bard, so move most of the bardic toolkit into ranger and instead have bard focus on songs. The dots both could be songs the fact they are shots in the first place make 0 sense for a bard, the current partywide buff could be its own song and the buffs they give us could be different songs as well. A lot of our attack could also be done via songs. There is already a precedent for song based attacks in games like ff4. Plus lb3 should be more bardic themed instead of a bunch of arrows. As it stands now I don't think the person who designed bard knows what a bard is. We should be using songs and instruments much more than our bows.

Ranger could have the majority of the current toolkit and maybe add pets that show up for an attack and then disappear. Have a hawk swoop in for a quick attack. Have a bear rise up, swipe and then disappear. Have a dog charge through and bite (You're such a good boy, Interceptor).

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The actual Bard is a watered down (and by a lot) version of FFXI Bard.
On FFXI you are also starting as an Archer, but when you unlock Bard.... You forget that once upon a time you were a DPS.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

And then you end up on P7, P8 or Valigarmanda and just can't do any of the "Far" positionals.
There's a lot of mechanics that forces the player to stay in near melee range for share purpose, even M4S has phases where you're forced to remain at close range for a long time.

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No? Because Valigarmanda has no positionals?

I would also add that I want a temporary "failure state". Because the success is boring if there is no possibility of failure. Meaning that yes, Melee DPS absolutely ought to dominate damage if they can stay 100% in melee range. And Caster DPS absolutely ought to dominate if they can stand still 100% of the time. Only... neither should be possible. Not in a meaningfully reliable way. And that brings the damage down, which is where sub-par movement tools (like Reprise on Red Mage) and ranged attacks on melee ought to come into play, which should not be as trivial as they are now. However, likewise, movement tools should never be optimal to use rotationally, a weird FFXIV-specific side effect of how oGCDs can be woven between GCDs and how that interacts with casted vs instant GCDs.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

No? Because Valigarmanda has no positionals?

I would also add that I want a temporary "failure state". Because the success is boring if there is no possibility of failure. Meaning that yes, Melee DPS absolutely ought to dominate damage if they can stay 100% in melee range.

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It's only in the hypothetical scenario if we had a "far" positionals mechanic to show the potential conflict.
Another example is that you sometimes put tank and ranged together in NE/NW position to share damages because it allows melees to hit positionals. But in that case, either tank wouldn't be able to hit or ranged wouldn't be able to fulfill the "far" requirement.

You can take P9S that forces everyone at max melee range in some mechanics, same goes for P11S, P12S, M2S, M3S... All encounter that have positionals available.
Every "donut" type of mechanic would instantly deny that "far positional".

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

It's only in the hypothetical scenario if we had a "far" positionals mechanic to show the potential conflict.

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But... on enemies with a full ring positionals always count as "hit"? I think I get what you're poking at, but I was thinking that just like flank/rear positionals these would disable on oversized mobs etc.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

But... on enemies with a full ring positionals always count as "hit"? I think I get what you're poking at, but I was thinking that just like flank/rear positionals these would disable on oversized mobs etc.

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Yes, I've added examples encounter where the ring isn't full.
In any cases, you'd see conflict with job mechanics such as Asylum, Cure III, Wheel of Fortune from Collective Unconscious and Sacred Soil, I don't think anyone would like to see those abilities getting another range increase.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

Not all GCDs would be or should be walking casts. Not even BLM or PCT, the most casteriest of casters have cast times on all their spells. Like for BRD, GCDs like Refulgent Arrow, Resonant Arrow, Apex, and Blast Arrow, Radiant Encore, and its dots should remain instant while Burst Shot becomes a walking cast. They could cut the cooldown of Barrage in half so it could have more instant GCDs every minute for movement, and weaving space. I think lining up instant GCDs for double weaves is kind of an aiming-adjacent playstyle because it is like threading a needle, and does require some finesse, and should be considered in phys ranged design even with walking casts.

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You're aware that burst shot by virtue of being the base filler of procs has no control over where it appears? Now you're gonna tell me, then just add swiftcast and triplecast to the job? Oh wait... that's caster gameplay. Else what? I just don't do anything when I need to move and I don't have any procs? Even HW BRD you could turn off Minuet and lost the cast times when required...

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Originally Posted by Lorika

The actual Bard is a watered down (and by a lot) version of FFXI Bard.
On FFXI you are also starting as an Archer, but when you unlock Bard.... You forget that once upon a time you were a DPS.

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What? You didn't start as an archer in ffxi, archer wasn't even a class in ffxi. Ranger was, but that you unlocked at 30 on any class, just like brd. Did you even play xi? Cause the 2 were not connected in any way. And ffxiv brd is not a watered down version of bard from ffxi, they are 2 completely different things outside of name.

I just don't understand phys ranged. I don't play or main one but whenever j have them in a dungeon, 90% of the time It's a slog on the bosses. Is there an extreme skill ceiling or is their dps just that bad for no reason?

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Originally Posted by RinaB

I just don't understand phys ranged. I don't play or main one but whenever j have them in a dungeon, 90% of the time It's a slog on the bosses. Is there an extreme skill ceiling or is their dps just that bad for no reason?

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They do less dmg than melee because of their mobility and/or utility. Yoshida thinks giving them any higher dps would result in ppl ignoring melee since ranged can have 100% uptime and, in the case of brd and dnc, give dmg buffs. So the reduction on dmg he believes makes up for their mobility and utility. Which makes sense, but imo they take it a bit too far, esp for mcn.

The only time we will see ranged having similar dmg to melee is if one becomes the new dev darling, which is why blm and now pct have such high dps.

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Originally Posted by Valence

You're aware that burst shot by virtue of being the base filler of procs has no control over where it appears? Now you're gonna tell me, then just add swiftcast and triplecast to the job? Oh wait... that's caster gameplay. Else what? I just don't do anything when I need to move and I don't have any procs? Even HW BRD you could turn off Minuet and lost the cast times when required...

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You are right that just slapping a walking cast on Burst Shot without any other changes wouldn't work, and that is where certain compromises would have to be made such as making changes to Hawk's Eye procs to be more available, and flexible to be useful for mobility or for damage. And I don't really see a problem with 'phys ranged Triple Cast' or whatever.' If they really have to distinguish it from Triple Cast, then they can give phys ranged tools that grant a movement speed buff equal to sprint to negate the 'walking' part of a walking cast. BRD also has Repelling Shot, and that instantly gains a ton of value if BRD has positioning considerations, and they could also justify giving it an extra charge or two.

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Originally Posted by RinaB

I just don't understand phys ranged. I don't play or main one but whenever j have them in a dungeon, 90% of the time It's a slog on the bosses. Is there an extreme skill ceiling or is their dps just that bad for no reason?

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Phys ranged have no positioning requirements to their game play unlike every other job, and role, and that is why they might might be offputting to some players, and why they're damage is kept low. The in game observations I have made in my original post explore potential game play changes to phys ranged which will likely result in increased fire power, and make the role arguably more engaging to play.

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Originally Posted by AnimaAnimus

What? You didn't start as an archer in ffxi, archer wasn't even a class in ffxi. Ranger was, but that you unlocked at 30 on any class, just like brd. Did you even play xi? Cause the 2 were not connected in any way. And ffxiv brd is not a watered down version of bard from ffxi, they are 2 completely different things outside of name.

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Oo
Maybe i remember wrongly, but i do remember having a bow (and a dagger).... And yeah i played it until 2009 (when i switched for Aion and i still have the cd box if you want).
But i'm 100% sure i was using a bow with Brd (well, using is a big word, i never heard a lot the Battle Musics when i was playing BRD XD)

And it's a Watered down, FFXI Brd was buffing more things (HP/LO regen, physical/magic defense, Elemental resistance) with it's song (i had several macro for using song).
The big difference was alway the fact that FFXIV bard is a DPS then a buffer.... the contrary of FFXI, but the base are quite similar.

BTW, my first job on FFXI was monk, then BRD and RDM.

I'd kind of like more proc based Jobs in general (not just physical ranged), Healers could use some, casters, even certain tanks/melees could have some procs. I think it's good to even have one physranged that doesn't have proc based gameplay while two physical ranged heavily focus on it (I want things to actually feel different for each Job not just role type).

But what I do think physical ranged needs is more mechs where their mobility is actually needed (ranged mechs), more "utility in general" and higher damage then current... Give more reasons then "you bring the 1% buff" for physical ranged.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

I'd kind of like more proc based Jobs in general (not just physical ranged), Healers could use some, casters, even certain tanks/melees could have some procs. I think it's good to even have one physranged that doesn't have proc based gameplay while two physical ranged heavily focus on it (I want things to actually feel different for each Job not just role type).

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Definitely, although I would say that while Dancer has procs, their procs aren't their central game mechanic. So in the archetypes of MMORPG combat flow design, they're not "proc based". They're "priority based", a combat flow where the central element is that you have 1++ resource that you "overproduce" and often at a semi-unreliable pace, so your goal is to bleed it off not overcapping the resource, while also finding time to fit everything else in. Dancer in fact has this twice, once with feathers and once with the energy. Very nice priority-based job, what with the cycling cooldowns, wanting to use them right as they come up, but also having to react to changes in resource and pre-plan for burst windows accordingly.

I'd definitely want more jobs that use the other combat flow designs though:

* Static rotation (<-- this is where everyone except Dancer is right now)
* Proc based
* Randomized
* Adaptive

My favorite two classes for randomized combat flow (which is not the same as being based on procs!) would be Machinist and Summoner:

* Summoner gets 2+ minor summons for each "slot" (red/yellow/green), and as you are in each major summon, a few seconds before it ends you can see which selection you got. Each color roughly has a function (say red is always slow casts) but they all function slightly different, so you have to react to the random loadout you got and work with that.
* Machinist similarly I would give a "reload" function. On reload, you have a certain ability to influence what kind of ammo you'll load in what order, but mostly its random. Each ability with the gun, no matter whether GCD or oGCD, uses one ammo but the 3-4 types of ammo produce different effects so you might not want to use a certain one with a specific ability, or want to. It's a bit of a match-this-up game, if that makes sense? Say you get the order of 8 bullets, and now you know your ability usage for ammo will be 4 1 1 2 2 3 1 4 or so. Any other one works, too, but matching each bullet produces optimal damage.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

* Static rotation (<-- this is where everyone except Dancer is right now)

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I'd Argue RDM and BRD to some extent are also part of the exception

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

I'd Argue RDM and BRD to some extent are also part of the exception

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Hrm... fair enough. Debatable. I'm used to thinking about it from an EverQuest perspective, and in the "old" design (granted, 6 combat roles and all back then) they'd be static-y, but I get what you mean. RDM is in fact a bit special, as they're like the inverse of a priority based design in their core mechanic, but due to the abundance of energy-generation tools and in particular the procs at higher levels, this rarely has a big gameplay effect. Balance of energy is never difficult or meaningfully complicated. If it were, it'd truly be a priority-job, having to maybe not use a skill you want to use because zomg damage, but it'd unbalance your energy if you did. It's close to a really cool design, yeah.

BRD is not static. The burst also follows a priority triage system similar to DNC, just less packed. It also has procs on the GCD and oGCDs, similarly. The gauge generation is variable.
RDM is also not static with some priority baked into the filler combo combined with swiftcasts and accelerations acting as old MCH ammo, and a variable gauge generation.

But that's about it. Even AST lost its rng, and I'll not mention MNK because that's just on ogcd chakras.

With some not-so-scientific testing in Wolves' Den Pier, I can conclude that regular Sprint almost fully negates the walking part of walking casts. So Peloton could actually be reworked so that it grants Sprint to the player for 10 seconds, and has a 60 second cooldown -- to be later lowered to 40 seconds in the level 90-100 range when used in combat, and when used out of combat, grants the small party movement buff like it does now, and has its cooldown refunded. Having 2 sprint cool downs would be more than enough for any fight, for any mechanic.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

With some not-so-scientific testing in Wolves' Den Pier, I can conclude that regular Sprint almost fully negates the walking part of walking casts. So Peloton could actually be reworked so that it grants Sprint to the player for 10 seconds, and has a 60 second cooldown -- to be later lowered to 40 seconds in the level 90-100 range when used in combat, and when used out of combat, grants the small party movement buff like it does now, and has its cooldown refunded. Having 2 sprint cool downs would be more than enough for any fight, for any mechanic.

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I don't think further removing the "caster" part of being, well, a caster, is helping the game's design at all. If anything we need the polar opposite, even Black Mage is so mobile they feel like a Dancer used to, nowadays.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

I don't think further removing the "caster" part of being, well, a caster, is helping the game's design at all. If anything we need the polar opposite, even Black Mage is so mobile they feel like a Dancer used to, nowadays.

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It isn't a game, but I gotta reference Frieren. There is a character that the speed at with they can cast spells was notable, and we got to see them in action as they machinegun out spell after devastating spell when fighting an enemy. So from a purely fantasy standpoint, I think spellcraft like that is well within the general mage identity, and like works in XIV. Similarly, as a marksman one should be able to camp a spot, and lay down fire with deadly precision, but also be able to run, and gun like John Wick. However, in XIV our 'marksmen' are forced to run, and gun all the time, and it has no flavor. They need contrast between marksmanship styles -- it needs to be a choice.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

I don't think further removing the "caster" part of being, well, a caster, is helping the game's design at all. If anything we need the polar opposite, even Black Mage is so mobile they feel like a Dancer used to, nowadays.

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Imagine playing in the current encounter design with HW BLM hahaha, have fun

Koana is shown using the sniper rifle from PVP in the Crossroads trailer in what appears to be a solo duty cutscene. Do it! Commit to further PVPifying MCH, and BRD, and give them walking casts as well! Get mad!! Physical Ranged tax, yer days are numbered!!! It will be on the one that has to pay us this time!!

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Originally Posted by mallleable

Koana is shown using the sniper rifle from PVP in the Crossroads trailer in what appears to be a solo duty cutscene. Do it! Commit to further PVPifying MCH, and BRD, and give them walking casts as well! Get mad!! Physical Ranged tax, yer days are numbered!!! It will be on the one that has to pay us this time!!

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PvP is a treasure trove of fresh design ideas for most jobs, I wish the PvE designers would lean heavily into the ideas (not the actual implementation) of the PvP kits.