Ranged DPS role is about to be excluded from all content

[Vendalwind]

Please point out where I said ranged rotations are harder than other role rotations.

Will do: Right here.

casters have to know how to slidecast and pre-position for mechanics and maintain as much uptime as possible, melee need to know how to be greedy and when to disengage/hit positionals or ignore positionals to keep the gcd rolling, and ranged need to maintain focus and not mess up their rotation even if the ground breaks and the depths of hell break open as Satan's army begins its attack on the mortal plane.

In this sentence you divided dps into 3 groups, and labeled difficulty as inherently coming from three separate subjects. This directly implies that you think phys ranged's difficulty comes from its rotations (which is what you tied to it in your statement), and you even say so with extreme hyperbole: "even if the ground breaks and the depths of hell break open as Satan's army begins its attack on the mortal plane." if it was not your intent to suggest that ranged rotations were harder you should have chosen your words more carefully, as seen in context your statement about "hell breaking loose" is tied only to ranged dps rotations. That was why i took issue, because Melee also have to do exactly this, with some equivalently difficult if not more rotations, and with additional things to think about for uptime maintenance. And Casters have to do this to even more drastic effect everytime they have to move without insta casts available.

I wasn't claiming that,

But like I said, you absolutely implied it.

I was saying that every role has its difficulties and that difficulty is subjective.
...
And yes, I know ninja is the highest cpm, but we're not talking about ninja, but good job bringing up your job and your higher cpm as if you're trying to prove something to the strawman you created

Note your reference to EVERY ROLE. this is a conversation about balance of ranged compared to the rest of the roster. THUS if you only talk about ranged, you aren't on topic, and its funny because you literally in the same paragraph do it yourself (mention other classes) . Bringing up the class I have the most experience with is the easiest way for me to make comparisons, I also have played dancer in E1-E3 tho you wont find logs for it, and MNK. And DRK in E1, and AST in E1. So I do in fact have room to talk about relative difficulty to DNC.

Additionally bringing up NIN is no strawman for two reasons: A) This is conversation about balance as a whole, you cant cherry pick omit some classes. B) You can't knock down what I said anyways. your whole post didn't refute any of my statements but rather defended yourself and then simply claimed I was insulting people and straw-manning. If im not putting up a false statistic to be distractedly knocked down.... well I'm not strawmanning. I'm presenting information and perspective that happens to be very much on subject. (BALANCE OF THE DPS ROLES AS A WHOLE) I didn't present that information to distract, I presented it to compare.

Dogen you apparently don't know what strawman actually is. Flinging around fallacy names without properly identifying them is very poor practice.

AND CPM was not something I brought up, but something you presented without big picture view beyond saying 2nd 3rd etc. Before me.
I was in fact wrong about my CPM assessments and have gone and dug into it, you are in fact correct here. MCH, then BRD are faster than SMN. I was operating under the incorrect assumption that SMN had higher CPM than MCH or BRD.
Additionally I would agree CPM does not directly intuit difficulty, but it is a metric that somewhat attempts to represent it. And finally on the CPM subject would also say that higher CPM on a class with less mobility means more tho, because that directly reflects on time spent immobile while button mashing..
For actual informations sake
In E2 (as its the best fight for maximum cpm across classes evenly)

Top NINs have ~51 CPM (with lower skill speed than me, i need to step up my game!)
Top MCHs ~46
Top BRDs ~46
Top SAMs ~42-47 (really odd wide gap is the only one inconsistent across classes at top ten, different SkS means a lot tho to what SAM fillers in their rotations.)
Top MNKs ~43.5
Top SMNs ~42
Top DRGs ~39
Top RDMs ~37
Top BLMs ~ 31

the 2nd, 3rd, and 7th highest CPM

The above snip I THOUGHT was objectively FALSE thus i responded. Therefore I clarify with the above.

To me summoner is easy but just tedious, but to other people summoner is hard as hell to play.

I really don't care for when people want to balance job damage around difficulty considering that black mage has the easiest rotation and the second best movement out of all casters, with red mage being the worst mobility, yet is the best dps in the game, and red mage, the job with the second easiest rotation is second lowest in rdps.

Sadly so many people still claim RDM has the best mobility. I try to argue with them about how the one every other cast works out to be less actual in practice movement... because they cant breakneck run anything like a BLM on triple can.... but people dont get it. I personally don't disagree with the statements about BLM or RDM, but I dont have the personal experience to really support them either.

I'll also be clear on this. IMO ranged playing is in fact easy. I have played BRD on my Wife's account, and I have played DNC on my account. The amount of stress compared to NIN Is SO MUCH LESS in savages. I cant compare it to other melee tho cause i dont really play other melee in savage other than a minuscule amount on MNK. WHICH again is why i reference NIN. Its where my experience is. To me, Phys Ranged as a whole is much much less stressful to play than my NIN.

I will close by echo/ditto twisting your statement.
I personally really don't care for people that want to dismiss balancing job damage around difficulty solely because it is harder to measure, because in my opinion difficulty should very much be rewarded. That's something you'll just have to move on from because I will make all my posts, and have made all my posts with that in mind. And I also have to stop reacting to people that operate under the assumption that difficulty shouldn't be rewarding i guess.

[Dogempire]

Snip.

I don't feel like replying to everything you said so I'll just say a few things:

First of all, just because you find certain jobs easy doesn't mean others will, I know you're trying to make yourself seem better than everyone, at least on a subconscious level, by talking about your apm and how easy bard is for you compared to playing ranged, but nobody cares. Literally nobody on here cares that you play ninja and find bard easy.

Second of all, not all melee classes are designed like ninja and require you to play the keyboard just to do a rotation. It's cool that you enjoy your class, but it doesn't give you the right to call other classes easy just because you play the one with the most inputs. I can agree with someone who says that the classes with more inputs shouldn't be at the bottom, but I can't agree with someone who claims an entire role is easier to play than a different one, especially the one that makes YOUR job easier by handling mechanics for you so you don't lose any uptime, that's just arrogant and shows how little you know of the other roles.

Lastly, every role has its rotationally easy classes, melee has samurai and dragoon (I think, haven't played it myself but it's what I heard), ranged has dancer as the easy class, and casters have red mage and black mage as the easy rotation classes. You're speaking from a perspective of playing the most rotationally ridiculous melee dps and comparing it to the dps that doesn't even have a set rotation and saying that ranged is easy. I know you mentioned bard, but honestly, if you're going to use personal experience to justify an opinion, don't use one that's so obviously biased to anyone who actually knows how every role plays.

Also a note for the future: Don't go into a ranged issues thread and claim that ranged is the easiest role, and proceed to lowkey brag about your cpm as a ninja as if anyone cares about who you are or how many buttons you press a minute. It's not going to work and you're not going to seem cool.

[Vendalwind]

I know you're trying to make yourself seem better than everyone, at least on a subconscious level, by talking about your apm and how easy bard is for you compared to playing ranged, but nobody cares. Literally nobody on here cares that you play ninja and find bard easy.

False. not once was I trying to brag, float my own boat, or lift myself up with comments about my skill. Not a single moment. The CPM segment was a moment of just pure investigative interest, that if you didn't notice led to me realizing one of my earlier assumptions was in fact wrong. Additionally I can play the troll card here a bit since you keep calling me out and I'll respond in turn.
You seem to care. Care so much about me being a NIN main that you've decided my opinion is so biased its invalid. What impressive ability to shut people out that is!

Second of all, not all melee classes are designed like ninja and require you to play the keyboard just to do a rotation. It's cool that you enjoy your class, but it doesn't give you the right to call other classes easy just because you play the one with the most inputs. I can agree with someone who says that the classes with more inputs shouldn't be at the bottom, but I can't agree with someone who claims an entire role is easier to play than a different one, especially the one that makes YOUR job easier by handling mechanics for you so you don't lose any uptime, that's just arrogant and shows how little you know of the other roles.

Fine disagree, just stop personal attacking me with false accusations of strawman and then basically all the above. Did you not notice that I play a class at 80 in every role available in the game? (except Caster on this character) And despite that I still frequently say I dont have enough experience with these classes to really have an opinion? you possess a funny idea of arrogance.

Snip the rest.

Not here to seem cool. Im here cause I care about the balance of the game. I want ranged buffed, but I also want to dismantle false logic that is routinely spread to ruin what I hope the game balance will be like.
I'm here to talk about the game, the balance, and how ranged DPS need a buff. I'm also here to talk about why people argue against it, and to generally combat what are, in my opinion, foolish or misguided notions of balance. One of the first posts of mine you decided to attack was literally not me saying ranged should be weaker, but me explaining why mobility itself is such a massive boon in light of people underestimating it's its ability to reduce difficulty.

Even if i spoke in some too divisive absolutes my intent was solely to shed further light on why mobility is such a boon.

If you wish to continue with an actual valuable conversation, perhaps you could touch on what elements ranged possess that are inherently difficult? literally exactly like Akuido did?
Please do that instead of making assumptions in a passive aggressive form of personally attacking me.

[CKNovel]

Did you not notice that I play a class at 80 in every role available in the game?.

There is many different shades of "playing" or at least pushing the job at its top in this case.
I too, "play" all the jobs in order to know they abilities and know what they are capable of. I too, can vaguely play Ninja, Samurai, Summoner, Dark Knight... But all I could play is far from being optimized, being the best way to play, synchronized with any comp.

On a very low level, I agree with you, ranged are from far the most easy jobs to pick up as they were stripped from utility. The mobility in a newbie's point of vue is gold, you can move away and still damage, why should you pick a mage or a melee job? Obviously they should have a ranged tax, that's obvious and any game designer who would neglect should really question their abilities to balance a game.

I've said it earlier and I'll gladly repeat it:
Ranged jobs are the most easy to pick up, but they are one the most difficult to optimize.

You have extra responsabilities, extra opportunnities to take care of.
Melee and Caster won't have these, the mindest about mechanics is always "I need to move first then I can DPS when I'm at range/stationnary".

I'll be taking an interesting mechanic: UWU Ifrit's nails.
In short the 2 most distant players will spawn aoes under their feets. Each nails must be hit by 2 aoes.
The responsability will obviously be on the ranged as first and a healer/caster.
The non-physical ranged will only have to worry about their own aoe and the nails, you can cast before but I highly doubt you can cast during the mechanic apart with instants.
The physical ranged, however, needs to keep up its rotation and dps, that's an extra layer of difficulty and must be rewarded not punished because you are the job for... the job.

There is little of these "big responsabilities" and I wish players would be given more choice as to how handle others mechanics because that's the only scenario where mobility actually is usefull in those scenario with tight DPS check and precise mechanics.

[SaberMaxwell]

I'll be taking an interesting mechanic: UWU Ifrit's nails.

This is a bad example, mainly because it highlights Physical Ranged's strength at being able to continue their rotation throughout a baiting mechanic like Ifrit's Nails with relative safety. TL;DR of this post is your point that Phys Ranged have to keep their rotation going while Casters don't is incorrect, and the fact is that they do need to keep their rotations going which means they need to understand their mobility options as a Caster very thoroughly and plan accordingly, and even then they need to take gigantic risks to just not get caught by eruptions.

A better way to tackle it might be the amount of mechanics a Phys Ranged is expected to handle: in UCoB, they're the designated fire baiter no matter what. In both Twin and Adds phases. In UWU, they're one of the designated eruption baits, as stated, but they're designated for every set of eruptions, whereas the caster usually bows out after the first mandated eruption bait for them. Summoners at the time, who had the mobility of casters, could keep going however. Phys Ranged are also expected in many parties to take a Thermal High from Garuda all the way to Ultima, and to eat one of Garuda's attacks away from the party and then navigate their way back to said party.

The responsability will obviously be on the ranged as first and a healer/caster.
The non-physical ranged will only have to worry about their own aoe and the nails, you can cast before but I highly doubt you can cast during the mechanic apart with instants.

You highlight this as though it's a boon for a caster to not be able to cast during this. In the first case, you're wrong: every second casters aren't casting, they're losing substantial levels of DPS, so yes, they'll be keeping up a rotation through this phase, but they need to be slidecasting / instant casting as much as they can through it; this also means they need to have an intimate knowledge of their slidecasting threshold and they need a large amount of foreplanning to maximize the use of their instant casts. As an example, there is a strat specific to Red Mages, where the Red Mage will melee down a nail by themselves so they can enter Redoublement > Verfinisher during this phase. Even while doing this, I found myself needing to tempt death to hit the last slidecast needed to keep 100% uptime through here.

The physical ranged, however, needs to keep up its rotation and dps, that's an extra layer of difficulty and must be rewarded not punished because you are the job for... the job.

Which leads me here. As a Red Mage, you're no less expected to keep up your rotation, doing so is just much more dangerous. In keeping my rotation going through careful allocations of instant casts and slidecasting, I am still keeping my rotation going; I never did UWU on the other casters, but I'm sure Summoners had their methods and kept their rotations going, and Black Mages probably had to stock their Triple+Swift for that same baiting mechanic. It's just significantly more risky to do so. Not doing so, however, is a gigantic loss in damage for Red Mage, both in current damage output (no DoTs, no autos, no damage going out every second that a damage spell isn't landing) and in future output, as not casting means no mana generation, which delays and hurts melee combos going forward through the fight, and in long fights like UWU mistakes like that can cascade.

[Vendalwind]

snip

Your comment did make me consider a certain aspect of ranged difficult i hadn't given much credit to. And a funky but off kilter idea.
Effectively mechanics end up as the fight specific adaptations ranged have to make. Melee and casters probably optimize this way just as often. but for less mechanically complex events (such as head avoidance in E2)

Ranged don't make melee jobs easier. They suffer the least drawbacks, however, from movement based mechanics, and thus are given that responsibility. Unfortunately that responsibility tacks on some fight specific difficulty, and that's where ranged have to adapt for fight specifics.

As far as those mechanics go tho: Ranged don't somehow magically make melee easier, or caster easier by doing the mechanic. They(melee/caster) could do the mechanic they'd just lose more. You aren't EVER making a melee's job easier, you are just minimizing the loss that comes from mechanics because as a ranged you have a skill ceiling that enables you to perform at 100% uptime during those mechanics., and if you are good, that minimization reduces the impact of a mechanic to effectively zero.

As consequence tho Ranged do get saddled with extra difficulty from raid mechanics being assigned to them in bulk.. Perhaps in some way they should be rewarded for that? but the question is how, and is the ability to keep the rotation going during them the reward? From this arguable standpoint you could definitely make a case for ranged needing to be able to perform just as high (dps) as any other class. It seems a really weird idea, but if mechanics offered a reward system if a ranged performed them that could actually be kinda cool.

Que weird idea alluded to above. What if ranged had a passive, called counter strike or something, that functioned to give them a damage boost while they were the target of certain mechanics: baited meteors in E1, Black Smokers, tethers, etc.?

And even Tsunami debuffs, and similar mechanics, could trigger this effect for them. It would be interesting because ranged would shine and maybe even out dps melee/caster in mechanic heavy fights if they baited as much as possible. It would very much be a fight specific system tho, and would demand further skill on the devs side for raid design. But i personally would love this. Ranged could sit like 150 dps below the lowest melee normally, and then on raid heavy fights the buff could be enough to push them up significantly into melee and caster output.. this might be a terrible idea, but hey its a random fun insomniac thought i had.

Snip

So much everything you just said. both for caster and melee having to respond to mechanics can mean a lot of foresight and planning. It is gross oversimplification to say melee think "I need to move first then I can DPS when I'm at range/stationnary" because thats definately not how it works. A more correct statement, is at least 10 seconds before a mechanic goes off, a melee or caster thinks, "what can i do to mitigate this loss and and/or still do some damage from ranged or during my movement without F---ing up the other things i have going on?"

all classes can suffer cascading negative effects from a rotational screw up, but ranged is the only class that technically shouldn't ever have to outside of downtime moments in fights. melee and casters have to accept that some loss is innevitable and figure out how to minimize that lost by planning ahead.

[SaberMaxwell]

Ranged don't make melee jobs easier. As far as those mechanics go tho: Ranged don't somehow magically make melee easier, or caster easier by doing the mechanic. They(melee/caster) could do the mechanic they'd just lose more. You aren't EVER making a melee's job easier, you are just minimizing the loss that comes from mechanics

I need you to define terms here. What exactly do you mean by "easy"? My mind jumps to how much more difficult a melee's job would be if they needed to perform liquid hell baits in lieu of a ranged dps of either variety being capable of handling the mechanic. A ranged not handling something that would make the melee's job harder, in my eyes (even having to leave melee to do hatches in my brief stint in UCoB as a DRG was painful), meaning the ranged is making the melee's life easier.

Speaking as a caster, if I can have my DNC run a mechanic for me, it makes my life much easier to have her do it. Liquid hells, again, come to mind: they're a mechanic that as a caster, if I have to handle them I'm losing damage with no question about it. Having them run them for me means I get to stand still and keep casting while they enact an entire extra mechanic that I now don't have to think about.

because as a ranged you have a skill ceiling that enables you to perform at 100% uptime during those mechanics.

Minor nitpick, but that's not what a skill ceiling is. They have a tool kit that allows this, but the skill ceiling itself isn't what allows the uptime. Terminology is important.

and if you are good, that minimization reduces the impact of a mechanic to effectively zero.

Whereas if a Ninja had to handle it they'd need to plan extra around their rotation, figure out what can go where and how with planned downtime, making their job harder. Ergo, not having to do that means their job is easier, unless your definition of 'easy' contradicts this, but I'll have to wait till you have the chance to define your terms.

Que weird idea alluded to above. What if ranged had a passive, called counter strike or something, that functioned to give them a damage boost while they were the target of certain mechanics: baited meteors in E1, Black Smokers, tethers, etc.?

It's a unique take on the situation, although my question becomes: Why would casters be excluded from either baited meteors or Black Smokers, since they're expected to handle those mechanics for the melee as well? Actually if you wanted to be really cheeky, you can even have melees handle those mechanics with no downtime, you just have to be really quick about it.

[Vendalwind]

Sorry Wasn't as clear as I thought I was being. Lets see if i can make this make sense, or if my sleep post last night was just too incoherent to salvage.

I need you to define terms here. What exactly do you mean by "easy"?

ah okay,
What I mean by this is that picking up a mechanic doesn't actually make anyones job easier, as in less button pushes, more damage, etc. directly. The mechanic has to be done, that doesn't some how make other jobs easier to play when it's done, it just get completed and then the fight resumes. My way of looking at this is if you had a team of 4 melee, well 2 melee would still have to do the mechanics, but then the other two melee that got lucky with having no added responsibility still would just do their regular thing. the melee taking the mechanic makes his own life harder by doing so, but has no impact or change on the others beyond clearing the mechanic. So the idea that "ranged dps somehow make other jobs easier" doesn't work for me. Its the same way that a Melee user LB3ing doesn't make anyones life easier. It's a personally responsibility they take on that will interrupt their rotation and hold them still for a good while. It adds dps to the group, but its doesn't make anyone elses job easier, its just one of the self sacrifices expected in the fight.

Speaking as a caster, if I can have my DNC run a mechanic for me, it makes my life much easier to have her do it. Liquid hells, again, come to mind: they're a mechanic that as a caster, if I have to handle them I'm losing damage with no question about it. Having them run them for me means I get to stand still and keep casting while they enact an entire extra mechanic that I now don't have to think about.

That does make sense. So now I see what you are saying, and now realize im just arguing perspective/semantics. I look at that situation and say, "it sucks theres no one around that can take that responsibility I'll have to lose the dps" you look at it and say "Its easier for me if someone else takes that responsibility" so that makes sense.

Minor nitpick, but that's not what a skill ceiling is. They have a tool kit that allows this, but the skill ceiling itself isn't what allows the uptime. Terminology is important.

I more said that noting a piece of the 100% skill ceiling. Skill ceiling refers to the absolute farthest a class could be taken, IE even better likely than the 100th percentile player. So I am referring to the ability the player has to perform at that level. For melee players and casters our perfect play will still often have breaks in the rotation and flaws in uptime. E2 is the exception to this depending on some luck and perfect tank play as well. There is of course a lot more that goes into a ranged perfect run than just 100% uptime (optimizing for buff/raid dmg as one example, dealing with rng as another, properly managing dots for downtimes. etc.)

Whereas if a Ninja...snip

Again yeah were just looking at it differently. When I think of things making other peoples lives easier I think of direct effects. like tank using mitigation on an ally to save them from life makes healers have to do 1 less raise. Or ranged shield samba etc. means potentially less heals have to go out. etc. I don't think responsibilities make anyone's life easier because anyone could do them, they'd just suffer more drawbacks.

It's a unique take on the situation, although my question becomes: Why would casters be excluded from either baited meteors or Black Smokers, since they're expected to handle those mechanics for the melee as well? Actually if you wanted to be really cheeky, you can even have melees handle those mechanics with no downtime, you just have to be really quick about it.

Do you mean casters being excluded to my random idea counter-strike buff?
I dunno maybe they shouldn't be, but if they and phys ranged both shared the ability, im sure some gigabrain BLM would try to find every moment they could triple cast and line it up with some mechanic and then declare his dps is more important than the phys ranged. BLM's already have the privileged to command people around for their perfect numbers. Id prefer not to add more fuel to that fire. BLMs actually literally DO make other people's jobs harder in pursuit of their perfect dps.

Another example of something i would define with skill ceiling instead of difficulty.
Skills like trick, Embolden, tech step don't make peoples lives directly harder (difficult) but rather they raise the skill ceiling because now the player CAN adapt to fit in more dmg during it's window.

I hope that all made sense. If not oh well @_@

I am interested to know tho. The more I've thought about it the more I actually like the counterstrike buff ability idea. Give ranged direct role based incentive to handle the trickier mechanics, AND to maintain their rotation during those mechanics since mechanics would become an alternative buff window. It'd be very satisfying to play around.

[Akiudo]

For actual informations sake
In E2 (as its the best fight for maximum cpm across classes evenly)

Top NINs have ~51 CPM (with lower skill speed than me, i need to step up my game!)
Top MCHs ~46
Top BRDs ~46
Top SAMs ~42-47 (really odd wide gap is the only one inconsistent across classes at top ten, different SkS means a lot tho to what SAM fillers in their rotations.)
Top MNKs ~43.5
Top SMNs ~42
Top DRGs ~39
Top RDMs ~37
Top BLMs ~ 31

not arguing the point you made here, but taking the statistics you pulled here because i would like to add one thing to them, and that is that it's not just about cpm but their actual distribution during that minute that at least makes part of the difficulty. NIN obviously is an anomaly, the whole "ranged vs melee vs caster" debate set aside but as square allready stated they feel nin is to busy and promised adjustments theres that.

But its not just pure cpm that make the difficulty, the very fact you don't know when you get your proccs (and you get a lot of them) demands on the fly adjustments, empyreal arrow gives you a guaranteed procc, also with 15 seconds cooldown it is short enough that delaying it even a little will cost you more than one during the fight, now every empyrial arrow you press the milisecond it gets ready may eat a procc for either bloodletter or perfect pitch if you don't watch that stuff, EA while bloodletter active? 150 potency lost, EA at 2 stacks pitch perfect while the next server tick comes up before you will be able to fire it ? technically a loss, Using Barrage "correctly"? (so it doesn't eat a procc, Apex arrow gets used beforehand as it has higher priority, dots are kept up even if it means a delay) Congratulations, theres a big chance you in fact will delay it so much you will in the end miss a Barrage, just that at the time you delayed it for 3 global cooldowns the first time you had no idea that would happen 10 minutes down the line.

Not saying thats bard exclusive, or that no class has other things to watch out for, but its not simply "bard has among the highest cpm", the very nature of their randomness makes you basically constantly watch your bars while keeping server ticks in mind