Remove melee throw weapon abilities?

[Eliadil]

The less conflict a kit has, the less interesting it is to make any choices within them.

Making something desirable to use is easy, but making it meaningful as well is where it gets difficult.

I mean... The meaning and the goal is to prevent dps loss from forced downtime. I don't really see how you could do more meaningful than this.

[Kabooa]

I mean... The meaning and the goal is to prevent dps loss from forced downtime. I don't really see how you could do more meaningful than this.

It's a balancing act between decision making and outcome.

Currently, using ranged options for melee is something you have to weigh. How long are you out of melee, where are you in the combo, how much potency is gained or lost?

While there is nothing wrong with empowering melee's ranged options, you have to consider what that does to the inherent goal that melee aim for, which is "stay in range of the thing". The more powerful the ranged option is, the less that goal matters.

It doesn't seem a glamorous thing, but getting that 'last GCD' feels great. it's classic tension and catharsis, and it simply doesn't happen on the Ranged jobs.

[Archwizard]

I think the point of giving melee jobs a ranged attack so early on is to give them the ability to tag mobs from a distance before they have a gap closer.

You have to consider that early level stuff isn't just for raiders and max-level players, but for new and casual players too. "This mob is so far away" is a valid concern for a melee that early on, which several of these tools are made to alleviate so they don't get frustrated and give up on the job until they can power level it.

[Eliadil]

It's a balancing act between decision making and outcome.

Currently, using ranged options for melee is something you have to weigh. How long are you out of melee, where are you in the combo, how much potency is gained or lost?

While there is nothing wrong with empowering melee's ranged options, you have to consider what that does to the inherent goal that melee aim for, which is "stay in range of the thing". The more powerful the ranged option is, the less that goal matters.

It doesn't seem a glamorous thing, but getting that 'last GCD' feels great. it's classic tension and catharsis, and it simply doesn't happen on the Ranged jobs.

Currently you don't have much reflexion for ranged attacks as a melee. In any case it's a dps loss to use it. Using it and breaking a combo just makes it a too big dps loss, as well as a time loss that you cannot afford on most jobs (you cannot drift GCDs on Sam, and restarting a combo on dragoon means that you'll often delay your chaotic thrust combo, which you do not want to happen because it's such a big damage loss). I don't play/know much about ninja so I can't really say, but they have mudras for downtime, just like monk has meditate or even Anatman which doesn't interrupt their current combo/action.

As a DRG or SAM, there is almost no thoughts on your ranged actions. You just completely unbind it on Dragoon, or use it on some really specific cases for Samurai which are almost impossible to plan.

Somebody earlier mentionned that this gives more incentive to SkS, but that's false also. Each fight would require different SkS tier because mechanics happens at a different time, so you'd have to get different gear sets or meld just to be worth it... But it would also completely wreck the rotations of the two jobs that needs a really "fix" GCD tier to line up their cooldowns (spoiler, it's the two that I mentionned right above ). SkS would not fix the issue at all due to the current job design, so it's definitely not an option that you can or want to take.

[RVallant]

I'd probably use SAM Yaten-Enpi religiously to get out of small AOEs or whatever if Yaten didn't cost Kenki.

I'm not at the stage where I can use Kenki reliably yet though as I'm still on level 50 content, but I imagine if Yaten didn't require resources it would make that combination useful enough that I'd use it. Even if it's only to look flashy. :P

[Eliadil]

I'd probably use SAM Yaten-Enpi religiously to get out of small AOEs or whatever if Yaten didn't cost Kenki.

I'm not at the stage where I can use Kenki reliably yet though as I'm still on level 50 content, but I imagine if Yaten didn't require resources it would make that combination useful enough that I'd use it. Even if it's only to look flashy. :P

I'm kinda against Yaten costing no Kenki at all, but maybe making Yaten/Gyoten cost 5 instead of 10, just to make Yaten/Enpi/Gyoten neutral in term of ressources. Tbh, this along with Enpi not breaking combos would make this a much more "feelgood" ability, and would also encourage peoples to use it as filler to set up properly the Tsubame burst. You could even lower the damage of Enhanced Enpi to not make it an option "too viable". While I doubt this will happen right now, since the devs seems to be satisfied with only changing Shoha, maybe this could happen for the next expac, seeing how we'll probably drift away from new abilities and go towards more new traits.

[Nama]

Don't really see the need for any melee or tank class to need to have a separate button just for ranged when any piece of everyone's 1-2-3 could just have increased range. Current ranged options exist to be less dps and combo breakers for melee's out of range. You can replicate that function by say put increased range on combo enders. They have reduced potency outside the combo so opening or spamming so a ninja using say aeolian edge instead of throwing dagger is functionally the same outside of the occasional instance you retreat while on step 2 of the combo. Even then those occasions could be a reward for proper timing or good play and would let the player feel better about not having to ruin a combo if they need to step back for a minute. Could argue that you learn your ranged attack earlier then your step 3 combo ender but why not just learn that sooner instead. It wouldn't unbalance anything that early and would give new players something that they would actually use alot sooner.

[Eliadil]

Don't really see the need for any melee or tank class to need to have a separate button just for ranged when any piece of everyone's 1-2-3 could just have increased range. Current ranged options exist to be less dps and combo breakers for melee's out of range. You can replicate that function by say put increased range on combo enders. They have reduced potency outside the combo so opening or spamming so a ninja using say aeolian edge instead of throwing dagger is functionally the same outside of the occasional instance you retreat while on step 2 of the combo. Even then those occasions could be a reward for proper timing or good play and would let the player feel better about not having to ruin a combo if they need to step back for a minute. Could argue that you learn your ranged attack earlier then your step 3 combo ender but why not just learn that sooner instead. It wouldn't unbalance anything that early and would give new players something that they would actually use alot sooner.

While the idea is neat, it would be too much of a pain to actually put through, both in terms of animations (just imagine a monk punching somebody at 15y distance) and because if you happen to be unlucky in terms of SkS you're screwed.

Peoples get the idea that ranged attack for melee rewards "good timing" or whatever, but it doesn't. Every fight is scripted and will always repeat the same, no matter what. So let's say that you have an aoe that must be avoided at 2min15 into a fight, well this aoe will be there at every try. And what happens if your combo doesn't end at this moment ? Well you can't use a range attack because it breaks combo, or in your case because you're not doing your combo ender. So you basically can't use your range attack because you lose too much dps. And this happens at every try because a boss doesn't have random patterns.

Then peoples say "well duh you just have to adapt your Skill Speed stat". But this you cannot do again, because each fight would require a different SkS tier because mechanics don't happen at the same time. So this would require just an absurd amount of materia melding between each fight of a raid tier, if not absurd amount of gear. Furthermore, since the beginning of 5.0 we all know that melees can't "choose whatever SkS they want" because they all have timings to play around, and not lining up these could potentially hurt your damage so much that you would be better just playing SMN/BLM at this point.

So just make Ranged attacks not break melee combo and this would solve the entire issue and make everyone happy, especially if the next savage tier is as "melee unfriendly" as the current one.

[wereotter]

The reason I bring this up is, DRG doesn't get their first aoe ability until level 40 and NIN does not get theirs until level 38!

Ninja actually gets its first AOE skill at 35, just not the spammable skill till later. BUT the thing is even when some of these jobs get their AOE skill, it's still a DPS loss to use it until you've got something in the range of 5-6 enemies to hit, and in leveling dungeons, that doesn't happen as much.

[Ryaz]

I think the fact that they do disrupt combo makes it a little more interesting as well as satisfying when you manage to finish a combo right before having to move away. It also give more value to the Skill Speed substat. I believe melee should still mostly be melee, they'd be half ranged if those throwing abilities didn't break combo and had a combo of themselves, it imo removes some of the charm of being a melee and I think you can expect an overall dps nerf to compensate for their ability to have no downtime at all without sacrificing anything.

Melee wouldn't be half range if it didn't interrupt combos. Samurai has a ranged combo- Yaten > Enhanced Enpi, which I only use to avoid an AoE and to get enough Kenki to dash back in. It actually requires a little bit of skill to time it properly and keep max uptime. I don't use it if I know it'll interrupt a combo, though, as the loss of combo flow isn't worth a single 300 potency attack. It just gives us a nice tool to keep some uptime on the boss and raises the skill ceiling a bit.