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

[Cetonis]

I'd cite the fastest Levi clear being 5.0 as evidence that there's little to no serious competitive speed running going on. Also the number two Eden time has a Bard when it would very obviously be better if you just slotted in a Dancer. Yet they didn't bother. Heck, there are barely any ASTs up there still.

This isn't a sign of numbers being wrong or misleading, it just means the speed running competitively is all but dead. Some groups will try to do their best with what they've got, but they aren't so hardcore as to kick their ranged or make them / wait for them to learn BLM. Or even, in some cases, make them learn Dancer. Nobody cares enough to do that.

It just doesn't make sense to lead with an assumption that lots of groups are doing their absolute best to get the top possible times at any cost. There's no evidence to back that up, a couple groups trying some comps out late in 5.0 does not a large-sample scientific experiment make.

[Lastelli]

I'd cite the fastest Levi clear being 5.0 as evidence that there's little to no serious competitive speed running going on. Also the number two Eden time has a Bard when it would very obviously be better if you just slotted in a Dancer. Yet they didn't bother. Heck, there are barely any ASTs up there still.

This isn't a sign of numbers being wrong or misleading, it just means the speed running competitively is all but dead. Some groups will try to do their best with what they've got, but they aren't so hardcore as to kick their ranged or make them / wait for them to learn BLM. Or even, in some cases, make them learn Dancer. Nobody cares enough to do that.

It just doesn't make sense to lead with an assumption that lots of groups are doing their absolute best to get the top possible times at any cost. There's no evidence to back that up, a couple groups trying some comps out late in 5.0 does not a large-sample scientific experiment make.

True, but at the very least I'm backing my reasoning with the observation of player behavior.

Meanwhile, how do you prove that people would be better off swapping their ranged for a caster or a melee, exactly?

[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)

[Myon88]

Looking past the actual dps difference between the ranged and non-ranged, I think it's important to examine the reason why it exists in the first place.

If you buy the argument that maintaining melee and casting uptime is difficult, then it looks like the reason the melees and blm are overtuned is to compensate for the fact that most people will not play them perfectly. Conversely, you can think of it as that on these jobs you are rewarded for playing well. The dps tax that these jobs suffer is expressed naturally through gameplay (being unable to hit the boss), and you can erase it with enough skill.

So the question is, why is there no equivalent for the ranged jobs? In the current state of the game, you are not rewarded for being a great ranged player in a similar manner. The dps tax that ranged jobs pay is a glass ceiling that's hard coded into the amount of damage you do.

The only explanations for this are,

• The ranged jobs are just designed badly with no way to express your skill (meh)
• Ranged jobs are intended to be the entry level 'beginner' jobs. They're designed to punish you the least for mistakes in exchange for lower potential (oof)

I don't know about you but neither of these sound like good news for the prospects of the role. Maybe they're designed like this on purpose to cater to the demographic that enjoys these jobs casually, in which case the expert players that enjoy ranged are just out of luck.

If it were up to me, they'd need to give the job back a strong niche and source of difficulty that would justify returning their lost dps to them. For example, a hellishly difficult and nuanced rotation that's actually possible to flub even if not moving. Or go even harder on the support aspect with enough support responsibilities to actually tax your multitasking ability. Some of this was the case back in Heavensward, but given how they've spent the last 2 expansions trying to move away from that, I don't think the role is going back in that direction anytime soon.

[Cetonis]

True, but at the very least I'm backing my reasoning with the observation of player behavior.

Meanwhile, how do you prove that people would be better off swapping their ranged for a caster or a melee, exactly?

I'm not attempting to prove that. Just saying that it's oversimplifying things at best to just point at the speed rankings charts given all the red flags there.

I don't think there's any mystery to the role bonus - it's clearly a 0.95% or so loss of damage across the board, it's not all that complicated. So you can figure out very directly that bringing a DNC is a good idea if chasing E1S and E3S speed kills.

With E2S and E4S that appears at first blush to not be the case. However, it's hard to quantify the value of including a 2m burst job into a buff stacking scenario, because the DNC itself is going to add to the rDPS production of other jobs in a way that fflogs has no capacity to measure.


My point is that this is very DNC-specific, and that presents a conundrum. If you can't bring a DNC, it seems very unlikely that bringing a BRD or MCH will be better than finding a high-skilled SMN/BLM. But, a situation where BRD=MCH=DNC at the top end of speeds would be bad, due to how much faster relatively DNC is going to fall off with less-perfected groups.

But DNC isn't optimal for a dummy fight (E2S) by very much, if it is at all, so there's not really any space there to i.e. bring BRD/MCH closer and just-into viability range without getting to the level of DNC.

What there *is* room to do is to bring DNC up a little more, to where it rivals other jobs in an optimized group, so that you can raise BRD/MCH up but still clearly behind DNC (blocking off the double ranged option), which will get closer as group quality falls.

[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.

[Adventica6]

The more people that cry for buffs the happier I will be, so keep it coming. You want us to do sam/blm levels of damage fine by me.

I play what I enjoy, not what does the biggest damage (casting is boring as hell).

[Aiscence]

Tbf, I dont know why people wants to force the "two melees", if there is all 3 dps roles, I dont know why bringing a second ranged should penalize a team that much, compared to bringing another melee or caster.

Machinist is easy to pick up but not as easy to fully optimize and keep that high apm without any drift, on top of being highly depending of raid buffs to do his damage, which BLM and SAM dont depend on as much. So mch should have less dps than a job having rezzes and raid buffs just because we can "move" ? I felt way more comfy playing SMN than I did playing playing MCH because of the mobility and the lack of intensity in its gameplay.

Lots of other jobs could just do the ranged movement, even tho they'll lose 1 or 2 GCD and still outdps the ranged contribution in any content.

i'll even more double down on the fact MCH should be on a BLM or SAM lvl, if a team have all 3 roles already and they want a greedy job? why isnt mch a valid choice? just because they can move? As I said in multiple other threads, ranged, because of the mobility are doing -more- mechanics than others, to let them have more dps and we are punished for it?? In which world is that fair? Because we are doing well our job, we are getting punished? Imagine IRL you did more studies, leading to you doing more stuff than others but being paid less because you have an easier time doing it ?

And to answer other questions, double ranged was taken because casters were really bad, which isnt the case here (outside of rdm being a bit low), even if the ranged were buffed (accordingly to how they should be, not overbuffed), people would actually have the choice to play -what they enjoy- and not feel like having only one ranged is mandatory or dps will become an issue. Thus, when double ranged were taken, it was because the other jobs were trash garbage to play and felt horrible on top of having bad dps. if a job has an horrible gameplay but have good dps, it'll be played anyway.