So...is the Ranged Role gone? Are we in a Reverse HW?

[CKNovel]

Ranged Role is not gone, but SE still see them as "Casters without Cast".

It's actually funny that they share their views about the RDM underperforming. Its buff should raise it around the NIN/DRG.

As Yoshi-P mentionned that "It's not fun to play efficiently", it actually gives the idea that they think Ranged Uptime is much higher than Melees, that melees waits 5 seconds between mechanics. On top of that, the job balance is actually a huge mess, the SMN situation proves it, SE ignored the fact that the job was doing so much damages 2 weeks before TEA release and did not nerfed it at TEA release, making it a valuable asset. During my TEA prog, we were able to skip the last tank buster & hand of pain consistantly (most groups with a SMN do it today I think?) and I'm sure if we replaced our SMN with a BLM, we could not skip it. That was saving a lot of mana, cooldowns and time over the progress.

As I said months ago, ranged role is still balanced as a support DPS with... No support. If all ranged had a Dismantle-like ability and a tiny refresh they would have been an incredible asset. Support is not always rDPS, it can be survival for the team and it often feels good to reduce incoming damages when I play tank. Survivability could be a good way to buff the Ranged Role.

Right now it really feels depressing to play ranged on EX/Savage with Pugs. All the ranged role brings is 1% stats and nothing else compared to the other DPS. No matter how hard you push, you could just play Melee and bring much more while doing less and this is my biggest concern.

With my static, ranged still feels like bringing nothing but uptime to the Melees or bait mechanics but at least the DPS is not an issue.

More DPS, more utility beyond the rDPS. Ranged DPS definitely needs something that makes them a valuable asset, because 10% every 120s ain't one.

[Lastelli]

With my static, ranged still feels like bringing nothing but uptime to the Melees or bait mechanics but at least the DPS is not an issue.

More DPS, more utility beyond the rDPS. Ranged DPS definitely needs something that makes them a valuable asset, because 10% every 120s ain't one.

My party doesn't have a SMN and we easily skip that last tankbuster.

Anyway, the fact that all parties still have one ranged after so long means that having one is optimal. I really don't see what the problem is. If they buffed ranged dps again they would just tune endgame content around the new potential dps, making the change neutral and, therefore, pointless. Are people really just sad to be at the bottom of the dps chart even if they're wanted in pretty much any party?

[Cetonis]

Anyway, the fact that all parties still have one ranged after so long means that having one is optimal.

As per my prior comment few groups care are doing serious speedruns of Savage (the top Levi kill is 5.0 ffs) so looking at those charts doesn't necessarily tell you anything.

At the most charitable, you could say that having a Dancer is optimal by a mostly-slim margin at the top end with a group that's maximally stacking buffs. That's DNC-specific though. The other two ranged are getting blown out by DNC in speedkill contexts, then DNC falls back closer to them in less-ambitious groups.

I don't think SE can or should do much of anything, given the designs, about DNC outpacing the other ranged at the top top end. But they could afford to close the gap a little, especially as it relates to working around downtime which DNC is extra strong at.

As for the ranged being behind overall, obviously you'd rather have your game be more balanced instead of less balanced, so clear gaps like this should get some work. I don't think ranged should equal other roles, or else you'd hard lock double ranged (because why not take the mobility if everything else is equal). But they can be closer than they are.

[Lastelli]

As per my prior comment few groups care are doing serious speedruns of Savage (the top Levi kill is 5.0 ffs) so looking at those charts doesn't necessarily tell you anything.

That doesn't really matter, though. If having a ranged dps was a strictly inferior choice, by now we'd at the very least see a lot of no-ranged parties on fflogs. If virtually all parties do include a ranged, it's because people see value in them.

I'd go even further and say that if substituting the ranged with another caster or another melee was indifferent, then we'd see some parties with no ranged dps. But again, that's not the case.

Also, speedrunners did try different party comps before 5.2. Trust me, I checked fflogs rankings frequently back then. And even then, before the ranged were buffed, most comps included a DNC.
Someone did try triple melee comps in eden 2 and 3 and got good results...but at the end comps including a DNC were still on top by a few seconds (before the buff). The role buff is probably more powerful then people realize.

I do agree, however, that DNC is clearly superior to the other 2 ranged...to the point where it's stupidly close to melee dps in TEA, but that has more to do with how beneficial downtime is to DNC, given how perfectly everything lines up with quad step and devilment. They can't do anything to DNC to fix this...but what they can do is give the other 2 ranged some tools to capitalize on downtime. I thought they learned their lesson with ultimate coil and uwu (SMN was and still is op for a similar reason)...but I was probably wrong.

A bit hasty in your reading, friend:



Ranged lacks the utility they used to have.

Also, I'll point some flaws in your reasoning:
1) SE don't tune around the endgame, it was proved again and again and is the reason why ranged dps are lower.
2) If any change would be neutral, no one would mind if Casters are put behind and melee/ranged would deal more dps, right? Oh, that already happened...
3) Your point of view is limited to endgame and I assume Savage and Ultimate. There's dungeons and EX, despite how easy it is, it's much better if you can speed it up. EX is the same, it's often tried by casuals who don't mitigate, the more mitigation/utility around survival your job has, the better. Felt that when I would play tank in Hades EX. On top of that, there's also Relic based content that will come with 5.25
4) During 5.0 my comp was MNK/RDM/MCH/DNC, we had all the 1% from each role but due to our comp we had quite the handicap. But going Melee/2 Casters/1 Ranged brings no handicap despite the "mobility" they should be lacking. If a comp goes 2 ranged, they should be allowed to play 2 ranged without feeling a huge gap in DPS. The fact that Troubadour/Samba/Tactician don't stack also brings a new handicap.

As for the "sad" part, remember that the ranged spot only exist for the 1% stats. That's the sad part.

Don't think in "DPS" only, ranged jobs were just not stripped of their DPS, they also lost valuable utility. Overall, the ranged job lost so much that they bring little for the group and that's why there are so many complaint around the ranged role.

I don't care that ranged dps lost some utility. I'm analyzing the current situation, and the current data tells us that ranged dps are not excluded from any kind of content. Being that the case, it's very likely that having one is optimal. If having one is optimal, there's no point arguing about their dps. Were they buffed by X, the devs would just increase the dps requirement for content by X = no difference at all.

Also, their AoE damage is very good, making them a perfectly viable solution for dungeons...assuming anyone cares about completing their dungeon 2 minutes earlier and dropping a job for it. If that was the case, everyone would be running BLM and WHM.

To conclude, my opinion is that double ranged comp should be actively discouraged. The current balance assures that you don't want more than one ranged in your group. That's perfect to me. And while Troubadour/Samba/Tactician do not stack, they're still the strongest defensive cd available to a dps and you can use them twice as much with a double ranged comp.

[Karshan]

That doesn't really matter, though. If having a ranged dps was a strictly inferior choice, by now we'd at the very least see a lot of no-ranged parties on fflogs. If virtually all parties do include a ranged, it's because people see value in them.

I'd go even further and say that if substituting the ranged with another caster or another melee was indifferent, then we'd see some parties with no ranged dps. But again, that's not the case.

Also, speedrunners did try different party comps before 5.2. Trust me, I checked fflogs rankings frequently back then. And even then, before the ranged were buffed, most comps included a DNC.
Someone did try triple melee comps in eden 2 and 3 and got good results...but at the end comps including a DNC were still on top by a few seconds (before the buff). The role buff is probably more powerful then people realize.

I do agree, however, that DNC is clearly superior to the other 2 ranged...to the point where it's stupidly close to melee dps in TEA, but that has more to do with how beneficial downtime is to DNC, given how perfectly everything lines up with quad step and devilment. They can't do anything to DNC to fix this...but what they can do is give the other 2 ranged some tools to capitalize on downtime. I thought they learned their lesson with ultimate coil and uwu (SMN was and still is op for a similar reason)...but I was probably wrong.



I don't care that ranged dps lost some utility. I'm analyzing the current situation, and the current data tells us that ranged dps are not excluded from any kind of content. Being that the case, it's very likely that having one is optimal. If having one is optimal, there's no point arguing about their dps. Were they buffed by X, the devs would just increase the dps requirement for content by X = no difference at all.

Also, their AoE damage is very good, making them a perfectly viable solution for dungeons...assuming anyone cares about completing their dungeon 2 minutes earlier and dropping a job for it. If that was the case, everyone would be running BLM and WHM.

To conclude, my opinion is that double ranged comp should be actively discouraged. The current balance assures that you don't want more than one ranged in your group. That's perfect to me. And while Troubadour/Samba/Tactician do not stack, they're still the strongest defensive cd available to a dps and you can use them twice as much with a double ranged comp.

I don't know about the others, I can only explain better what I had in mind, and it's not this question : do range have a spot, will they keep it, will they get more ?

I'm just stating they're behind DPS wise. And the arguments for why don't work on me. If they're buffed, suddenly everyone will take range and only range ? Having a MCH or DNC do the same damage as my SMN (well smn is op so bad exemple, maybe something more like rdm after the buff it will get) won't make me drop it suddenly for MCH, I don't see why it would for so many people ?

If movement was such an issue for all non range classes, you would see no casters. Yet here they are. If uptime was such an issue for all non range classes, you would see no melees. yet here they are, and frequently even 2 by party.
Because uptime is a non issue already at my average level, and even more for you when you play at your level (took the liberty of looking at your profile and you're very good), everyone on your team manages uptime so well it virtually doesn't matter.

So low numbers is an issue that gets more importance unfortunately. Absolutely not saying it gets you excluded. Just saying it's "feels bad man". So if you don't feel bad, well that's really good for you and I can see why you don't get us. Just understand other might. I don't play range so don't really care honestly, just laying out all the points to discuss (cause I've had it with whiny melees who think their job is the hardest in the world and thought at first you were one)

[Lastelli]

I'm just stating they're behind DPS wise.

I understand your point and I'm not arguing against that. My point is that as long as ranged jobs are included in an optimal party composition, people shouldn't care. Feeling bad about lower numbers even if your job is still wanted is irrational if you understand how the game works.

[ForteNightshade]

I don't know about the others, I can only explain better what I had in mind, and it's not this question : do range have a spot, will they keep it, will they get more ?

I'm just stating they're behind DPS wise. And the arguments for why don't work on me. If they're buffed, suddenly everyone will take range and only range ? Having a MCH or DNC do the same damage as my SMN (well smn is op so bad exemple, maybe something more like rdm after the buff it will get) won't make me drop it suddenly for MCH, I don't see why it would for so many people ?

If movement was such an issue for all non range classes, you would see no casters. Yet here they are. If uptime was such an issue for all non range classes, you would see no melees. yet here they are, and frequently even 2 by party.
Because uptime is a non issue already at my average level, and even more for you when you play at your level (took the liberty of looking at your profile and you're very good), everyone on your team manages uptime so well it virtually doesn't matter.

So low numbers is an issue that gets more importance unfortunately. Absolutely not saying it gets you excluded. Just saying it's "feels bad man". So if you don't feel bad, well that's really good for you and I can see why you don't get us. Just understand other might. I don't play range so don't really care honestly, just laying out all the points to discuss (cause I've had it with whiny melees who think their job is the hardest in the world and thought at first you were one)

You may not switch but other people will. You needs only look at 5.0 where PF was locking out Ninja because it was objectively the worst melee by no small margin. SE cannot simply look at what the best players are doing. They have to consider the average. And it's here why those gaps are going to be far more noticeable if the Range did comparable damage to the melee. Why devise uptime strats, especially if they're harder or requiring more healing when you can just take a Machinist instead of a Samurai? Eden's Gate is a terrible example given how little downtime there was for melee. Hence why I point to Alphascape. If you weren't doing uptime Hello, World as a melee, your damage tanked severely, especially if you were unlucky and got second stack. You're very much underestimating people if you think buffing the range to match melee and casters won't lead to the former getting locked out.

As for the Casters. Only Red Mage lacks mobility at this point. They don't have the free mobility Range do but they have tools to manage it, especially Summoner.

If they continue to develop Savage fights like Eden's Gate, then mobility will play less of an impact. If they give us another O12S. It's a dead melee fight outside statics. None of this accounts for the melee also having no utility to speak of outside Feint (by far the weakest) and Mantra (Monk exclusive). I do think their damage is too low but Machinist shouldn't be rivaling Samurai or Black Mage.

[Wavaryen]

This sounds like a community problem more than anything else.

Is the game design where you need to have the optional group setup? If so it is a game problem.

Is the game design where you don't, and having the best group setup..but players still need to have this. It is a problem with the community.


It is a endless cycle and at some point I think developers should just ignore it. They kinda already have that stance with the no parsing, and consider it harassing when you call out people for low dps.

Balance should not be done around what people are willing to invite.

[CKNovel]

My party doesn't have a SMN and we easily skip that last tankbuster.

Anyway, the fact that all parties still have one ranged after so long means that having one is optimal. I really don't see what the problem is. If they buffed ranged dps again they would just tune endgame content around the new potential dps, making the change neutral and, therefore, pointless. Are people really just sad to be at the bottom of the dps chart even if they're wanted in pretty much any party?

A bit hasty in your reading, friend:

As I said months ago, ranged role is still balanced as a support DPS with... No support. If all ranged had a Dismantle-like ability and a tiny refresh they would have been an incredible asset. Support is not always rDPS, it can be survival for the team and it often feels good to reduce incoming damages when I play tank. Survivability could be a good way to buff the Ranged Role.

Right now it really feels depressing to play ranged on EX/Savage with Pugs. All the ranged role brings is 1% stats and nothing else compared to the other DPS. No matter how hard you push, you could just play Melee and bring much more while doing less and this is my biggest concern.

More DPS, more utility beyond the rDPS. Ranged DPS definitely needs something that makes them a valuable asset, because 10% every 120s ain't one.

Ranged lacks the utility they used to have.

Also, I'll point some flaws in your reasoning:
1) SE don't tune around the endgame, it was proved again and again and is the reason why ranged dps are lower.
2) If any change would be neutral, no one would mind if Casters are put behind and melee/ranged would deal more dps, right? Oh, that already happened...
3) Your point of view is limited to endgame and I assume Savage and Ultimate. There's dungeons and EX, despite how easy it is, it's much better if you can speed it up. EX is the same, it's often tried by casuals who don't mitigate, the more mitigation/utility around survival your job has, the better. Felt that when I would play tank in Hades EX. On top of that, there's also Relic based content that will come with 5.25
4) During 5.0 my comp was MNK/RDM/MCH/DNC, we had all the 1% from each role but due to our comp we had quite the handicap. But going Melee/2 Casters/1 Ranged brings no handicap despite the "mobility" they should be lacking. If a comp goes 2 ranged, they should be allowed to play 2 ranged without feeling a huge gap in DPS. The fact that Troubadour/Samba/Tactician don't stack also brings a new handicap.

As for the "sad" part, remember that the ranged spot only exist for the 1% stats. That's the sad part.

Don't think in "DPS" only, ranged jobs were just not stripped of their DPS, they also lost valuable utility. Overall, the ranged job lost so much that they bring little for the group and that's why there are so many complaint around the ranged role.