Ranged red jobs aren't meta

I'm not gonna beat around the bush and say that all those red ranged jobs (BLM, SMN, BRD, MCH, DNC) aren't seen much at high level especially within the top players. When one does try them, it's generally not their main and they tank their games with it.

This isn't to say they're bad or do not perform. They do perform, but they're obviously not meta picks like MNK/NIN/DRG/SAM/GNB/PLD/AST/WHM/SCH. This isn't something new and it's been a thing since the inception of the mode. A team full of melees will absolutely murder a team full of ranged at high level. Healers make up for it by bringing serious heals to the table, which gives them a spot in that meta especially today with the balance between burst and sustain being more even. The way the game is designed is that ranged jobs do need their melees to create a frontline, and open room for them to breath and play properly, which shows serious limits past certain skill levels.

Point is, just look at what is played in top crystal and all you'll see is the same comps and jobs everywhere except for that lunatic, stubborn unicorn somehow managing to cope. This doesn't speak of a great balance between the job roster, whether the numbers say otherwise or not. There is just a wide portion of the job roster that players just give the cold shoulder past a certain point, at least on EU. Most of the best players all main the same meta jobs.

If the solution to red ranged jobs was to buff their damage even more, it would probably prove to be even worse for the game since that would make them into gigantic primary targets even more, since they just die if the enemy team even glances at them. And if they don't, just dive and chase them down until they die, your melees chasing them will survive way better and longer anyway, it seems to be pretty popular when there is enough top players on both sides.

This is of course my personal feel about it, and I'd be happy to have other opinions on this.

I’m not a high-ranking player but that’s something I have noticed too.

PvP in this game doesn’t really seem to understand (or adhere to) what the archetype of the ranged DPS is about.

Ideally ranged and melee DPS would need and complement each other.

But right now red ranged classes only really work if melees keep the enemy frontline occupied. Melees on the other don’t need ranged classes to deal with/weaken the enemy backlines to even out any disadvantages on their part. They can do that job perfectly well and get rid of ranged enemies by themselves.

I completely agree that more damage wouldn’t solve the problem.

Instead it should be the range itself that becomes our strength but in CC we can’t really use it to gain a significant/”game changing” advantage (obviously it mustn’t be OP either).

Melees are good at close-range combat because they have more inbuilt “padding” by possessing a higher HP pool. For ranged classes, the range should be our padding to make up for our squishiness. If we get hit it’s more devastating than to melees so the solution is to not get hit in the first place by making clever use of our range.

But with melees having so many gap closers, stuns, crowd control etc. range becomes (almost) redundant in CC (can’t say much about FL). Esp. if you are a caster and can’t move while, well, casting.

(And with the CC maps being rather small with short distances, simple layouts, narrow paths and only one level in terms of the z-axis there’s not much depth to tactical positioning that ranged classes can capitalise on.)

As a ranged class you can try to survive 1v1s for some time in order to get away but you can’t really duel a melee that chases you because your kits’ full strength comes at the cost of your mobility (this is/may be different for hybrids) but you need your mobility to make up for your frail HP and avoid hits. (Most? Many?) Melees on the other hand seem to be more balanced in that regard and have realistic chances of winning a duel if they play well. Running is not their only option or the only possible outcome of a 1v1 confrontation.

(I do wonder if BLM and WHM break that mold a little, esp. with BLM's new defensive tools. I'm not strong enough on either of them to make a call on that but intuitively I feel like BLM goes in the right direction? I appreciate other people's insights on that point.
I think very distinct supports like scholar are a special/different case. Them being team-dependant is probably unavoidable because that is the nature of supports like them.)

So yeah, I think what ranged (DPS) classes need is more actual depth in terms of ranged gameplay. One that doesn’t make them overpowered and that still requires skill (and therefore allows for skill expression). But that also means if you do have the skill you can level the playing field and take on melee classes more successfully.

Success playing ranged is getting increasingly reduced to being able to eyeball 20/25 yalms. In FL half the time there is no front line to play behind.

I must be out lier im not ultimate runner im savage runner but i main dancer in savage and pvp o.o

I think dancer also counts more as a hybrid job than a pure ranged job? I'm not sure as I don't main it. But from the few times I've played around with it what really stood out to me are: its mobility and its instant attacks (no slow-walking to attack like bard or machinist) while still having your full kit (compare that to blm and pct who have to switch to a weaker kit and give up a lot of their power to gain access to their instant attack strings and defensive casts).
I would say dancer is the closest to a ranged (or ranged-ish) DPS that is good at controlling range in their favour as a core feature of their gameplay. You can create a distance between yourself and others while attacking without being overpowered.
I don't know how dancer does at top levels but in terms of design philosophy I feel like this is a good foundation, one that "gets" the nature of what ranged gameplay should be about and that could be expanded upon.

Another class that did it well in my eyes was the old BLM and its freeze mechanics. I know, it wasn't without criticism and I'm sure there were good points made but I still think the principle itself was well thought out: controlling range by immobilising your enemy and preventing them from getting close to you as a squishy(with the freeze/bind having enough downtime to allow enemies to reach you depending on how either of you played). Balance issues aside duelling on old BLM was a lot more fun to me because of that. It was unique compared to what we have now.

don't melees still have higher defences or... some kind of damage reduction going on? i haven't followed if they have or haven't done anything to it.
anyway, who would have known that those jobs which are worse in dishing the pain would see slump in their popularity when the game mode is mostly about dishing pain?

"but ranged jobs have longer reach, they have more/more consistent chance to serve pain!"

--when almost every melee can either pull you in or gap closer to your easily bruising ranger butt?

I think the reason melee jobs are so much better in matches is because a large portion of people who play PvP appear to lack the awareness to help peel for their ranged players. Healers are fine in this case because they have much better survivability than the other ranged jobs, but if you play a BRD or a BLM, even when you play in crystal tier matches you can run laps around your healer/tank while being wailed on by an enemy melee and they just ignore you.

Ranged jobs would probably see more usage if they didn't so heavily rely on the melee players on your team to create space.

I think that's definitely one point but another one is the disadvantage when one team has no melee DPS that could peel for you to begin with.
If melee and ranged DPS were balanced then a comp comprising only ranged jobs vs. a team of onle melees should be evenly matched because they have advantages and disadvantages over each other that should balance each other out.
But right now a full melee comp can stomp a fully ranged comp. The damage of both categories is more or less the same but ranged DPS have less survivability without being able to use their range to make up for it.

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Originally Posted by Loggos

I think dancer also counts more as a hybrid job than a pure ranged job? I'm not sure as I don't main it. But from the few times I've played around with it what really stood out to me are: its mobility and its instant attacks (no slow-walking to attack like bard or machinist) while still having your full kit (compare that to blm and pct who have to switch to a weaker kit and give up a lot of their power to gain access to their instant attack strings and defensive casts).
I would say dancer is the closest to a ranged (or ranged-ish) DPS that is good at controlling range in their favour as a core feature of their gameplay. You can create a distance between yourself and others while attacking without being overpowered.
I don't know how dancer does at top levels but in terms of design philosophy I feel like this is a good foundation, one that "gets" the nature of what ranged gameplay should be about and that could be expanded upon.

Another class that did it well in my eyes was the old BLM and its freeze mechanics. I know, it wasn't without criticism and I'm sure there were good points made but I still think the principle itself was well thought out: controlling range by immobilising your enemy and preventing them from getting close to you as a squishy(with the freeze/bind having enough downtime to allow enemies to reach you depending on how either of you played). Balance issues aside duelling on old BLM was a lot more fun to me because of that. It was unique compared to what we have now.

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DNC is definitely a hybrid job and doesn't suffer from red ranged DPS shortcomings. It's not as tanky as a melee or a RDM, but it still has solid additional defenses and an incredible mobility. I wish red ranged DPS jobs had that kind of additional defensives, without the mobility. Or the other way around. Or more control over threats approaching them, which DNC has (can activate defensives, can cure, and/or can zip away).

As a DNC main I have other issues with the jobs, but they're more on the damage output (way weaker than in EW), and the hell on earth the LB is to use. It's not a bad job at high level, but it's not meta either, and in randoms, it's also a gigantic gamble depending on the DPs you get.

I like the idea that BRD and MCH contrary to DNC are more like snipers with tactical positioning considerations, but the problem in my opinion is how they'll always die before the melees that dogpile them will, unless they have very specific meta comp like PLD or AST/WHM to save their ass (but then guess who is even harder to kill with a PLD/AST/WHM? Melees...). DNC doesnt have that problem as much. Also yes, walking casts are the best way to die, and I don't think rphys that don't have the mobility tools of casters, really needs any cast times at all tbh, they'd still lack mobility anyway... Walking casts are really bad, I'd rather have normal casts on rphys that I can easily cancel, even though no casts whatsoever would be even better.

Personally, I wouldn't say walking casts is terrible with no way to redeem it, it actually could work with some additional effects so the player isn't just a sitting duck.

MCH could have a knockback added to Blast Charge with the distance knocked back being dependent on your distance to the target, so a target in melee range gets knocked back further.

BRD could get 'Battlefield March' stacks or something, with each stack reducing cast time by 25% and increasing move speed by 5% with a max of 4 stacks, so after 4 casts, the BRD can attack instantly and have 20% increased move speed as long as they keep the buff going.

My biggest issue with ranged is trying to find a range where you can actually attack and not have someone immediately jump on your face, especially if you lack a front line. It feels too short and casters have it much worse as casting seem to get interrupted the moment someone steps out of range. There needs to be a bit of leeway where casting won't get interrupted once it's started unless the enemy has moved more than 10y out of range.