The Future of the "Ranged" Role - Feedback for 5.1 Onward.

[HyperiusUltima]

Striving to make one of each role the standard is the healthiest solution to balance problems. It is easier to balance utility across all dps classes to make each role viable and desirable than it is to balance damage potencies across the entire dps spectrum.

Consider a world in which all jobs have the same utility, thus you could take any composition you wanted into a fight, such as your example of four melee. Would this community that champions "dps is king" do anything other than 1) Take the four highest damaging classes (even with a reasonably small variance between top and bottom) or 2) Take the four easiest to play classes to avoid any problems that the encounter might create for a certain job? No, this community would certainly take the path of least resistance.

Blocking off utility balance and damage balance by role and making each role desirable in a raid means that the fourth raid spot can be dictated by group choice of whichever role makes sense for the group's skill set and the encounter. This does come with the requirement that the roles not become too disjointed by the variance in damage between them, because we want to make it so that the "dps is king" mindset doesn't take over and demand that fourth spot be damage over utility.

That’s kinda how it’s being played right now. SMN has the utility and damage output to outdo the Ranged by at least 1,000 rDPS on most fights. They even have Devotion and Phoenix’s 700 total potency Regen to back up their reason being there instead of a Ranged. SMN simply is too strong right now due to the utilities they bring vs. a mitigation(check the SMN complaint thread for the discussion I had with @Akiudo).

[ShadowNyx3]

That’s kinda how it’s being played right now. SMN has the utility and damage output to outdo the Ranged by at least 1,000 rDPS on most fights. They even have Devotion and Phoenix’s 700 total potency Regen to back up their reason being there instead of a Ranged. SMN simply is too strong right now due to the utilities they bring vs. a mitigation(check the SMN complaint thread for the discussion I had with @Akiudo).

Summoner or Red Mage would already have a spot for progression raiding because of the value of raise. That is absolutely nothing new. You are trying to inflate this issue by bringing up superlatives like Everlasting Flight and misunderstanding that Devotion is anything more than just a party damage buff that is already factored into raid dps. Additionally, in your OP you try to say that Summoner's mobility is infringing upon the Ranged "niche" of having full mobility which is both false and completely irrelevant.

You focus on Summoner because it was buffed the most, when in reality it's simply that the Ranged role was not buffed enough while both Summoner and Red Mage were boosted. If you run the risk of losing your spot in progression raid comp, it would be because the Ranged role's damage contribution (in the form of their raid damage and party bonus) along with their utility is seen as significantly worse than just bringing a second Raise caster or any combination of two Melee and a Black Mage with one Raise Caster.

The simple matter of fact is that the Ranged role lost their MP management utility and has not received adequate compensation in the form of damage and additional utility to compete with Melee and Casters. The MP management is the most egregious of the two in my opinion because it was legitimately mandatory unlike Raise which has never been required, just so useful that it would be a detriment not to have it available. That leaves us with only one role utility that clearly shines above the rest that takes the full brunt of these balance discussions.