Physical range dps damage?

[Connor]

Expect incoming SMN nerfhammer.

Surely they could just adjust ranged if/as necessary? I wouldn’t think that Summoner is significantly overpowered, more that it just has a more full and interesting toolkit whilst still having the same / almost the same mobility as ranged. Not that it isn’t very useful for lots of reasons, of course

And I can’t speak for anyone else, but I always figured that optimising support ability usage was the ‘positionals’ of ranged. Melee have to deal with disengaging the enemy to avoid aoes, healers have healing to consider, tanks have defense to consider, casters have cast times and MP usage to consider, then ranged has their support abilities to consider.

Like, Bard with cast times and MP usage, Machinists and Promotion / debuff timing, even Dancer with having to use GCDs on Steps and stuff like Technical Step / Improv usage. I think stuff like that really gives ranged something to have to consider, meaning that they can’t just run around spamming damage buttons and work less hard than every other job, which I’m sure nobody wants or is advocating. And I mean, I’m sure there are more ways to support the party than the OP Refresh/Tactician abilities.

I don’t think ranged needs more dps personally, think I’ve always argued that I think ranged was meant to be about something different than just ‘hit them hard’ (to the extent that a support oriented dps role can be different). Since every other role in the game also has to ‘hit them hard’, so naturally it doesn’t make sense for ranged to only have dps to consider when there’s nothing else for them to deal with.

I mean, I guess ranged could remain as the ‘easy mode mechanics’ job, but then as others have said I have to wonder how much of an advantage ranged mobility actually affords, since it’s not like casters can’t bypass movement requirements with instant casts, or melee have absolutely no ranged attacks or gap-closers to mitigate disengagement downtime. Not that I’m saying they don’t need to consider cast times / downtime because of these abilities, just that they aren’t exactly rooted to the spot for whole fights at a time.

I mean, the devs removed stuff like old Bard songs and Machinist’s promotion because ultimately they wanted ranged be more focused on ‘just damage’. But as everyone else has pointed out, there’s a good reason why ranged shouldn’t really be about pure damage, because they either can’t compete with melee/casters, or become so op that they outdo them completely.

Lastly this is naturally just my own opinion on the subject and I’m not suggesting that my view is the only one that should be allowed to exist. If they decide to keep ranged as pure dps then I’m not going to like, quit the game or be upset, I’d rather just play something more support oriented like Summoner/Red Mage/Astrologian. I just personally preferred the 2.0/3.0 focus on support for ranged