Ranged has lower DPS due to full uptime but all other jobs also have full uptime

[Lastelli]

Nothing in this tier stops us from having 100% up time. When other jobs have to work hard to get it, especially melees, why should us ranged have a higher damage output?

This is exactly the point. And it absolutely blows my mind that so many people are pretending uptime optimization isn't one of the most important aspects of playing melees and casters (well, this is true for blm at least).

If they really want more damage, they should also be ready to be hit with some kind of uptime or movement constraint to work with in the optimization phase. Otherwise, asking for comparable damage is unreasonable.

[Kewitt]

No clue what my numbers are but as dancer I often sit 3 or 4 in threat. Most people out side of savage have no clue.

[Akiudo]

This is exactly the point. And it absolutely blows my mind that so many people are pretending uptime optimization isn't one of the most important aspects of playing melees and casters (well, this is true for blm at least).

the problem with the current balance is that uptime optimization can be completly (and i mean completly) ignored and melee still end up on top compared to physical ranged, thats even ignoring the fights where it really just means "sit on the bosses ass" but of course that is different and fair. "we (melees) have to work so much harder" would maybe have more of a ring to it if you couldn't just skip the "working harder" alltogether and still end up ahead.

[Seraphor]

This is exactly the point. And it absolutely blows my mind that so many people are pretending uptime optimization isn't one of the most important aspects of playing melees and casters (well, this is true for blm at least).

If they really want more damage, they should also be ready to be hit with some kind of uptime or movement constraint to work with in the optimization phase. Otherwise, asking for comparable damage is unreasonable.

Or, gain rDPS that is reliant on party damage, that way their damage contribution is relative to everyone's uptime.

DNC and BRD are set, just buff their buffs rather than direct potency.

MCH: turn Wildfire into a party mechanic.
Instead of gaining 200 potency for each weaponskill you use, change it to something like 160 potency for each weaponskill you use, plus 10 potency for each weaponskill/spell your party members use on the target.

Say that's 6 ws from you, plus 4 each per party member (28 between them) That's 960 + 280 = 1240 potency.
If uptime means the rest of the party only get 22 ws/spells between them, that's 1180 potency.

[Lastelli]

the problem with the current balance is that uptime optimization can be completly (and i mean completly) ignored and melee still end up on top compared to physical ranged, thats even ignoring the fights where it really just means "sit on the bosses ass" but of course that is different and fair. "we (melees) have to work so much harder" would maybe have more of a ring to it if you couldn't just skip the "working harder" alltogether and still end up ahead.

I just know that now that I'm a MCH main, I feel way less pressure compared to when I was a melee. I don't give a damn about where the boss is, when it's going to teleport or move or turn, I can safely execute mechanics without having to worry about my uptime, I can be my BLM target for AM and help him maximize his uptime, I can take care of other bait mechanics and help my party's rdps as a result, I bring the best mitigation tool and I have a better view of my surroundings, which increases my awareness of mechanics and minimizes my chance to make mistakes.

Having experienced pretty much all dps role (and most dps jobs) in a savage raid setting, I strongly support the devs' current idea of jobs balance where physical ranged dps are lower than other dps by 5-10% rdps, and I strongly believe that, unless DNC, BRD and MCH are given something to work with in terms of positional requirements, they should stay this low and a double physical ranged dps comp should be heavily discouraged.

So let me ask you. What is it that you want for ranged dps, exactly? Do you want the dps gap to be almost completely closed while still maintaining the current mobility? You do realize this isn't going to happen no matter what, right? Why not ask to increase the skill ceiling for the role in exchange for a higher dps output? That seems the most logical thing to do to me.

Or, gain rDPS that is reliant on party damage, that way their damage contribution is relative to everyone's uptime.

DNC and BRD are set, just buff their buffs rather than direct potency.

MCH: turn Wildfire into a party mechanic.
Instead of gaining 200 potency for each weaponskill you use, change it to something like 160 potency for each weaponskill you use, plus 10 potency for each weaponskill/spell your party members use on the target.

I don't dislike your suggestion for wildfire, but I believe dps buffs should be kept at a minimum to prevent some jobs from becoming the de facto undisputed kings in an optimized scenario. That's not healthy for the overall balance, especially since damage buffs optimization is extremely trivial in this game and amounts to little more than buffs stacking windows, so as long as you're executing your rotation properly, you're already optimizing party synergies as well in most cases. The only exception to this was BRD's Foe Requiem, but regrettabley it was removed.

[Akiudo]

I just know that now that I'm a MCH main, I feel way less pressure compared to when I was a melee. I don't give a damn about where the boss is, when it's going to teleport or move or turn, I can safely execute mechanics without having to worry about my uptime, I can be my BLM target for AM and help him maximize his uptime, I can take care of other bait mechanics and help my party's rdps as a result, I bring the best mitigation tool and I have a better view of my surroundings, which increases my awareness of mechanics and minimizes my chance to make mistakes.

see, I just know that after i switched from brd to smn i felt it way easier to deal higher amounts of dps without really working for them, i was literally able to out dps my bard (and not by 20 dps, more by like 1000) while switching out every single ruin3 i should have used for a ruin2 and just laughing about so called movement restraints (no, i don't regularly play like this, but it was fun to try), i just know that i played redmage during stormblood and while i do see it as having a somewhat harder time to move it was hardly on a "need 700 dps on bard at 50% percentile while being able to rez to be worth it" level. And i know that for me personally playing bard for 2 hours straight is actually a lot harder compared to say smn as i'm mostly fixated on reacting to my proccs instead of simply going through the motions as i do with classes with more fixed rotations, after 2 hours with my eyes glued to my hotbar i actually get headaches, no such problems playing a caster, never had such problems playing a melee (last time that happened was during heavensward i'll admit), but yea you say better awareness of your sorroundings, for me bard mostly boils down to "better awareness of my hotbars".

Having experienced pretty much all dps role (and most dps jobs) in a savage raid setting, I strongly support the devs' current idea of jobs balance where physical ranged dps are lower than other dps by 5-10% rdps, and I strongly believe that, unless DNC, BRD and MCH are given something to work with in terms of positional requirements, they should stay this low and a double physical ranged dps comp should be heavily discouraged.

having played every single role in savage content including at least for several months one of every role, i strongly disagree with the devs current idea of job balance, especially as "discouraging double physical ranged" just goes back into the whole "balancing classes around difficulty" which even if i agreed with the supposed difficulty of melees or whatever which i don't i would still say is a terrible idea to balance an mmo around espacially as again, a lot of it is subjective, at least i never saw someone ask for samurai nerfs because ninja is harder (or whatever the current difficulty balance between melees is).

So let me ask you. What is it that you want for ranged dps, exactly? Do you want the dps gap to be almost completely closed while still maintaining the current mobility? You do realize this isn't going to happen no matter what, right? Why not ask to increase the skill ceiling for the role in exchange for a higher dps output? That seems the most logical thing to do to me.

just to humor you, i really don't care about the dps gap as such, what i care about is viability, i don't want double physical ranged to be the best combination in every case, but making them "the worst in all cases just to err on the side of safe" thats what i don't agree on as it forces players into roles and runs contrary to playing the class you like.

the whole "they should only ever be allowed to be taken as a double if their gameplay is harder" is pure elitism even putting aside the subjectivity of it and is sadly a lot easier to say if you are a flexible kind of player that also has a static that basically goes "oh yea, our phys ranged spot just opened up, anyone wants to take it?". If you are the guy that only plays say bard, and you can be a great bard parsing 95+ average while using cooldowns to support your group all it means is the group would still be better of taking a barely blue Samurai as second melee instead of taking you as a second physical ranged because i dunno, the average 50% samurai is a better player than a 95% bard ? the average 50% samurai worked harder to get there ? Like i don't know, i don't play samurai, but using the site that shall not be named i generally played on the same Percentile level with smn as with bard, just that a purple smn is way higher than even a gold bard will ever be, funny how that works.

what this means in numbers is a different beast alltogether, but i don't really care if this means you look at a "all fights" metric and see physical ranged generally equal to melee/caster or 500-1000 or even 5000 below them, just that they are on a level where if you want to say build a static (or even a pf group) you can look at all possibilitys, taking the extra melee, extra caster or the extra physical ranged and say "the value these offer is equal". And yes again, for emphasis, denying classes equal value based on perceived difficulty is pure Elitism and easy to say for someone that doesn't really care for the class or role s/he plays.

[CKNovel]

This is exactly the point. And it absolutely blows my mind that so many people are pretending uptime optimization isn't one of the most important aspects of playing melees and casters (well, this is true for blm at least).

If they really want more damage, they should also be ready to be hit with some kind of uptime or movement constraint to work with in the optimization phase. Otherwise, asking for comparable damage is unreasonable.

Say that to SMN, a job with no-cast moments, which still comes out on top.
Say that to SAM, a job with little positionnal and barely punished for missing one.
Switching from Ranged to Melee/Caster actually change little, I don't play SAM a lot but can outdamage my MCH I play since HW with little effort. """Mobility""" only allowed me to run in circle in front of the bosses with no positionnals to care about, nothing more.

There was some tests at the beginning of the expansion on dummies where a DRG would hit the training dummy in front. A loss of 500 DPS.
Black mage could not use Thunder at all, they would do as much damage as BRD/DNC.

Do you see the problem?
Week one of progress, no Caster/Melee with half of a brain would optimize their DPS before the Mechanics, the Week 1 rule is consistency and learning the mechanics, DPS comes much later. Yet, despite the no-cast, no-positionnal state of ranged, the role is far behind. And it's not even done, Caster/Melee still have rooms to optimize so the gap will be only bigger as time passes.

It baffles me that despite the Week one datas, many thinks that it's okay for ranged to be that low.

I don't disagree that it's a bit more comfortable to play without cast/melee and strongly thinks that SE should complexify Ranged DPS, once a fight is done there is little room for optimization, MCH is limited to cast as much Drills as possible.

Damages of each jobs don't matter much in a group but they play a lot when playing with PUGs.
Since yesterday I started to notice that more and more Ruby Weapon PF were locking multiple rangeds out of the group. And that's the only reason why I wanted a buff to ranged, to avoid this situation again (Hello early Stormblood locking out MCH) and I hope this is only a strike of bad luck.

[Kabooa]

Say that to SMN, a job with no-cast moments, which still comes out on top.

Summoner shouldn't be the metric for 'balance done right', because while you are correct that Summoner kind of wrecks how we think of job balance, the crux is that Summoner and the Ranged Role should be on even levels, but not in the direction one might want.

[Connor]

If the developers hadn’t cut the ‘support’ part out of ranged (physical) dps - minus Dancer - I imagine this would be much less of an issue.

They tried to put it back and the result was the passive buffs on Bard songs that kinda defeat the purpose of ‘song buffs’, since Bard is supposed to be ‘singing to support the party’, not ‘singing to damage the enemy and coincidentally increasing party damage’. And then they forgot Machinist is a ranged or something, so it’s left with not great dps relatively but also no utility to offer in exchange.

Dancer is fine in the support area but then it’s dps is still too low for the support to compensate.

Like, it just seems like common sense that a damage dealer that can run around the whole fight and still attack whilst others can’t should have much lower damage to compensate. But when that mobility doesn’t stand up as an advantage, the job has to find something to offer that isn’t going to infringe on what the others offer.

And since the other jobs are offering either pure damage or high damage and some utility but with limited mobility, surely the only conclusion is that the high mobility damage dealer should have low dps but higher utility than other jobs.

I’m not saying they should return like Refresh or abilities that make it so you ‘have’ to have a ranged. But it’d be nice if they had something more to them than ‘can run’ and ‘has lower damage’. I can’t think of any content I’ve done in a while where I’d be like ‘if only we had a ranged this would be so much easier’.

But then if it’s a party of 4 ranged, I can certainly think of times where I’m like, ‘if only we had a caster for raise / big damage if blm’ or ‘I wonder if we could’ve beat that last few % with a melee here’

[Akiudo]

see, the big problem with this

it just seems like common sense that a damage dealer that can run around the whole fight and still attack whilst others can’t should have much lower damage to compensate. But when that mobility doesn’t stand up as an advantage, the job has to find something to offer that isn’t going to infringe on what the others offer.

see, thats where the problem lies, being able to run around does not actually translate into an advantage, if we would simplify down killing bosses to "hit it until it drops dead" than "being able to run around in circles while hitting it" is not an advantage when the other party is still better at it even though they may have to stop from hitting it from time to time, yet that is what "killing bosses" at the end of the day boils down to. Compensation is NOT something you should hand out for perceived difficulty, at least not in a game like an mmo where classes should be balanced against each other, you "compensate" classes for actual advantages of other classes.



At the end of the day the mobility of physical ranged offers exactly 2 (3 if you want to totally gimp yourself) things

1. the ability to deal damage while handling mechanics without any or at least only with miniscule loss
2. the ability to help others reach their full potential, say by handling a mechanic so the melee doesn't have to, which in turn may result in the melee doing 300 dps more at the end of the fight.
(3). the potential to ignore uptime strategies in favor of more simplistic ones.

however

1. is not an advantage if in reality even the most glued to the boss melee could just do the mechanics and at the end of the day than still deal 500 dps more.
2. the potential "extra" the melee could deal while the physical ranged handles the mechanic the melee could just as well deal while a caster handles the mechanic, the fact that casters get more and more mobile with every addon therefore invalidates a big part of the mobility advantage a physical ranged offers.
(3). for that to be realistic you would basically need to replace melees completly, which would cost you the 1% buff and the melee lb, it could still just as well be done by an all caster (or 3 caster 1 physical ranged) team and theres a good chance even if its just for the tanks you would at least try to go for uptime strats unless the necessary adjustments really suck balls.


fact of the matter is, at the end of the day "free" mobility is not an advantage, because it is not free, it gets paid for in way more dps potential it could ever gain you back. there is 0, literally 0 value in "free movement" if the dps gap is so big everyone else can just completly abandon even trying for uptime and still come up ahead.