Ranged DPS role is about to be excluded from all content

[Kabooa]

Ranged had a fair tax, melee were not as broken as we currently know and we didn't had a way to know the rDPS

There was an app that approximated it. We had about an accurate a measurement as we do now, it's just easier for the layman to see.

Ranged had a fair tax until Piercing Down was brought into the picture, then they were busted as !@#%.

[Dogempire]

Lets be honest. Black mages do not want to mechanics unless they are forced to. Even with the addition of Xenoglossy and the 30 sec Sharpcast.

I mean yes, but they have more mobility when they're forced to move than red mage does but has a lot more damage. Plus even if they lose a gcd or two they'll still easily be on par with ranged/the other casters.

[Kimstar]

Me, a casual. Yeah i play this game for glam tbh.

[Mistyregions]

Isnt is supposed to be, let's say a MCH does 10k dps a second no utility. Then dancer and bard do 8k but bring a dmg buff that can bring the other players dps up by 285.714285714 dps? I imagine that math cant be to hard to figure out, and with the role bonuses of not double stacking you would lose dps bringing two utility classes.

[HyoMinPark]

There was an app that approximated it. We had about an accurate a measurement as we do now, it's just easier for the layman to see.

Ranged had a fair tax until Piercing Down was brought into the picture, then they were busted as !@#%.

Honestly, the physical ranged being busted because of piercing was the developer’s own fault: they actively admitted that they didn’t balance BRD or MCH around piercing back in Stormblood.

[JanVanding]

I also feel that the support Dancer/hybrid Bard/selfish MCH experiment has utterly failed at this point. It was successful within the ranged role itself, but it fails when you take into account every class at once. When you really think about it, fight design appears to now be standardized around a 2 melee/1 caster/1 ranged composition, and the current balance promotes it even harder (if not replacing the 1 ranged with a second caster).

With that kind of design, there is literally no way the developers can give MCH enough damage to actually claim the mantle of being a selfish DPS without tossing Bard and Dancer into the dumpster, unless Bard and Dancer are given more meaningful support options to make up for it. And not just damage-wise, I mean more defensive utility as well. But considering how averse the developers are to the idea of party utility this expansion, the latter likely isn't going to happen for another couple of years either. They also can't buff MCH too high or else the advantage of being a ranged class shines through too much.

Maybe for the third expansion in a row, the devs still don't know what they actually want to do with Machinist.

Failed? No

Needs work? Yes.

DNC biggest issue is all their damage being gated behind feathers and 50% chance to combo skills, make flourishing cascade & rising windmill guaranteed and they would improve immensely, having the 3rd hit of their B&B single and aoe combos gated behind a 50% chance on top of 50% chance to get a feather, on top of 50% chance to get the higher potency 3rd hit (fountain fall & blood shower) which also has a 50% chance of a feather is far too much RNG gating.

50% chance on the higher potency yes
Feather needs tweaking to always grants on the higher potency and 50% on the lower potency as well and the class itself would be a hell of a lot better

Straight potency buffs won't help it, it's already well known the DNC opener puts out sick numbers, it needs less RNG to at least let you USE the mechanics more often.

[CKNovel]

Snip

I agree with this. Overrall the ranged are really close to each others.
DNC needs a slight potency buff and tweaks. But the ranged overrall have their strength and weaknesses that put them on equal foot.

For example, BRD and DNC will shine when there is multiple target while the MCH will shine against a unique target.
Rangeds, however, are bad when put in competition with all others DPS, utility and mobility included

[JanVanding]

I agree with this. Overrall the ranged are really close to each others.
DNC needs a slight potency buff and tweaks. But the ranged overrall have their strength and weaknesses that put them on equal foot.

For example, BRD and DNC will shine when there is multiple target while the MCH will shine against a unique target.
Rangeds, however, are bad when put in competition with all others DPS, utility and mobility included

Potency buffs should be without question for DNC and RDM because they aren't true range for a start, they're middle distance (between the range and the melee dps due to their big damage requiring them to get into melee range) thus the relative safety of standing at max distance and occasionally moving is gone.

I'd argue the RDM needs a fair bit more potency as their dash/escape is a lot more restricted in its movement sphere compared to the DNC En Avant. Especially once the DNC has access to stacks and there's not really much you can do in terms of tweaking their kit outside mana balance meter generation to make them better without changing the class fundamentally (DNC can easily have some of the RNG removed and be in a solid spot, RDM would just become a BLM with close ranged burst, dual cast and better mobility).

So potency tweak for RDM and add some extra balance meter generation on each skill and see where it goes.
Potency tweak, remove RNG from flourishing cascade, rising windmill and guarantee feather generation on fountain fall and bloodshower for DNC and both of those two should be in a great spot.

I don't want them to go too overboard with potency numbers for DNC though, slight tweaks for those, the RNG tuning is far more important to make the class flow as it should. The DNC has lots of potential, it's just not realized with all the gating.

[SaitoHikari]

Failed? No

Needs work? Yes.

I don’t think you guys understood what I was saying.

I’d say it pretty much failed when, despite the balance within the ranged role itself, the entire role is still in a bad spot when you take it out of the vacuum and include every other class into the calculations.

At this point, I’d actually say the melee role is the most balanced role now, the only real outlier being Samurai which is obviously undertuned. And fight design these days revolving around four melee classes competing for two party slots gives the devs much more room to balance them properly, as opposed to three casters and three ranged competing for one spot.

[WalxAtNite]

Here's how I've always looked at this:

Theoretically, if you put the bottom 5 in a group in front of EX or Savage content - ONLY the bottom 5 - could they clear it if they played at the high end of the median percentile for their jobs and followed mechanics?

If yes, but they'd struggle and need to be in the 75th to 80th percentile? - no changes needed.

If no unless they all play 100% perfectly and not even the 80th percentile gets them through a DPS check? - they need a boost.

SE does not intend to have ONLY those jobs in content. I understand that. However, the way I see it, if you wanted to make a premade with JUST the bottom 5 DPS jobs but you cannot because the content would legit be impossible, then something is broken. Done this way, other jobs' DPS doesn't even matter. It's a test as to whether these 5 jobs have enough oomph.

In other words, top DPS isn't everything to me, but I need to be able to clear content.