The unrewarding state of physical ranged

[Myon88]

99th percentile is unrealistic in terms of comparison. 75th is a bit more honest if you're worried about tuning at the top end

SMN in particular has the highest minimum damage output at the low range on most fights.

You should only be looking at 99th percentile metrics for comparison because that shows you how each job performs at their intended ceiling. 75th is not 'top end', and if you are falling there you are making frequent errors. The people performing even lower than that are barely playing the same game at all.

I don't really like the idea of balancing jobs based on how they perform at the lower end too. You're basically asking SMN/SAM/NIN players to pay an 'idiot tax' because of low performing players benefiting from their high performance floor. Conversely, jobs like BLM get a difficulty rebate - their job has to be overtuned because the people bad at black mage are really bad at black mage. That's not a very satisfying way to balance the jobs to me, it's basically a caste system with jobs split into 'expert' and 'beginner' jobs. I'd know which one I'd want to play in that case.

It's also important to note that how jobs perform when piloted poorly is not the only factor behind inter-job metrics at low percentiles. The worse the clears you look at, the more you find things like red mages getting embolden-shafted by having extra casters in their party, poor usage of uptime strats that hurts melees and black mages, poor coordination of burst damage that punishes bards and dancers. I'd be careful about drawing conclusions from that data in a vacuum.

Besides, if you rag on summoner you can't really justify any numerical buffs to the physical ranged at all. Unfun gameplay is one thing, but raw numbers are another, and between their mobility and general 'ease of use', they are everything people love to hate about summoner turned up to 11.

[Rai_Takara]

We're at the stage where on some bosses the gap is so large that a 25-30th caster/melee dps will beat a 75th percentile phys ranged. It's actually much easier to play a melee at 25th than push a bard to 75th. Dancer is also in a rough spot where they only crawl out of the worst rdps slot at near max percentile with groups that are among the best in the world. The issue with the tax is that it doesn't account for skill at all. There is no reward for playing well. You could play really well and you'll still contribute less, you're just there for your 1% party buff.

Does that mean it's a role designed for people who aren't great at the game then? Not really. The gap shortens marginally, but the phys ranged are still down at the bottom even at the lowest ranks. For players at lower skill levels, the problem is often uptime, reaction speed and raid awareness which are far larger losses than interrupting a cast or two or breaking melee range for a few GCD's. Those same problems apply to phys ranged, even DNC is high apm and easy to drift cd's and Bard has high apm, 2 Dots, songs and a gauge to juggle. If you aren't great at the game sadly a phys ranged won't fix that issue and magically boost your group contribution. The advantage of mobility at a range and no positions exists but it's a very small one when you get any experience at playing.

The issue is you're comparing to a melee. You should only be comparing your performance and effort among your fellow ranged. If a healer is busting their butt keeping the party alive and do damage, do you see them complaining that they aren't doing BLM damage because their BLM was drooling? No. Similarly, as a ranged, you should only look at your fellow ranged because while melee/ranged/caster are all DPS, they are different roles. The only reason they aren't separated further in the UI is for convenience lol.

[ssunny2008]

Phys ranged dps just feel too shallow, unrewarding, incomplete, as if you still need to unlock some major key skills that give some closure to their rotation. All of them. But rdps is not the reason for it.

I don´t want to arque about the dmg thing again, just saying somewhat.

Why does playing a phys. range should be some kind of rewarding?

Yes, you learn the class, your play rotation, you play the boss mechanics, you kill the boss. But that´s a thing to any class and the reward is the loot.

You don´t do anything else on phys. range than this. It doesn´t matter which boss you face or if the boss is casting an aoe directly in your face. It doesn´t matter if you have to go on range or melee distance. It doesn´t matter if you´ve to stack or spread. And it doesn´t matter on which position you are.
All what you do is to press some buttons in the same rotation and this at any boss you´re facing. There is nothing special, nothing to adjust, maybe that RNG procc you´ve to take care about, but that´s all.

I can just come again with my monk example. I´m a decent player with IL 527 right now on this class and E9s is like pain to play. I killed the boss multiple times but was like "that´s not enough" and i used my brain and adjusted to several mechanics in my own way. My dps increased about 1,5-2k. This was my personal reward, because i tried something new, i adjusted, and i died for the greed here and there before i reached that point.
That´s a thing to all caster and melee classes, more or less. You´ve to greed, you´ve to adjust, you´ve to make short decisions about skills like "SSS or Formshift or GCD + 1 chakra or, or, or..." as example on MNK. And when you missed the start, clipped a GCD or the tank turned the boss, things can go nuts.
Of course it´s not hard to get used to all that stuff for good players. But that´s it, you get rewarded in DPS for all the improvements you do on your own and those are different from fight to fight, mechanic to mechanic. Phys. range can´t improve in any way. They just play their rotation straight up down in every fight. No wonder they get stale pretty fast and feel unrewarding.

So again, for what should phys. range getting rewarded in some way, when there is like 0 depth or needed adjustments in their kit? Personally i could max out my DPS on phys. range at any fight pretty fast as long as i´ve played the mechanics down once. That´s not possible with the other classes. I´ll practice, i´ll greed and i´ll die until i found the perfect second or position to do whatever is needed.

(And before someone takes that in a bad mind... i´m up for any deeper gameplay. But with the addition of some new major skills without casting times, positionals or any real requirements, things won´t change. You´ll just have some new buttons, but still that high mobility class with the same rotation each fight, which enjoyment in fights actually depends more on the boss mechanics than the class itself. I can´t see DPS as the answer to actual enjoyment for a longer period of time either.)

[Kabooa]

Why does playing a phys. range should be some kind of rewarding?

You spent all of the monk positional thread pointing out why Monk needs to have them.

You should have no issue understanding why other players want more depth to the class so that the time spent on it doesn't feel like it will be better spent on another.

[ssunny2008]

You spent all of the monk positional thread pointing out why Monk needs to have them.

You should have no issue understanding why other players want more depth to the class so that the time spent on it doesn't feel like it will be better spent on another.

Please read until the end, especially the (...) part before you claim such stuff to me. Things won´t change with 1 or 2 more buttons or just a flat DPS increase. That´s my point.

[Rika007]

I don´t want to arque about the dmg thing again, just saying somewhat.

Why does playing a phys. range should be some kind of rewarding?

.Snip.

So again, for what should phys. range getting rewarded in some way, when there is like 0 depth or needed adjustments in their kit? Personally i could max out my DPS on phys. range at any fight pretty fast as long as i´ve played the mechanics down once. That´s not possible with the other classes. I´ll practice, i´ll greed and i´ll die until i found the perfect second or position to do whatever is needed.

Speaking as a former Physical ranged main who shaped over to caster for an entire expansion worth of savage content? This take is honestly just insulting.

1) Regardless of 'ease of use', ALL players deserve to feel rewarded for playing their job at a high level, this isn't negotiable, just hard truth. If a job doesn't feel rewarding to play for a vast majority of those players, then that is a failure of no one else's but the the dev teams. Ranged Dps, healers, casters, doesn't matter. If the job isn't rewarding to play, that is a failure, regardless of role.

2) Ranged DPS is not some brain dead job and stop advocating like it is. I've done this entire expansion on caster after doing the previous two expansions on Bard. I don't use anymore ounce of Brainpower on Summoner now then I did on Bard during Stormblood. There seems to be this fallacy that ranged players get to just sit out in the middle of no where, without a concern in the world about any mechanics, completely ignoring that any fight that requires more then a pulse will insure that the ranged player is stuck right next to the boss, doing all mechanics just like any of the melee's and casters do. If you are not then more then likely you are getting yelled at by healers to get back in closer.

Yes they don't have cast times, or positionals to worry about (although these days, melee positionals are a joke compared to what they used to be back in 2.0 and 3.0), so being a little bit lower makes sense, but no where near the gap there is now, and that in no way excuses all the other support abilities that have been ripped away from ranged players. It's not a stretch at all to say that you are far more supportive of the party in more then just rDPS on jobs like Red Mage, Summoner or even Monk then you are on Bard or Machinist.

[Dogempire]

The issue is you're comparing to a melee. You should only be comparing your performance and effort among your fellow ranged. If a healer is busting their butt keeping the party alive and do damage, do you see them complaining that they aren't doing BLM damage because their BLM was drooling? No. Similarly, as a ranged, you should only look at your fellow ranged because while melee/ranged/caster are all DPS, they are different roles. The only reason they aren't separated further in the UI is for convenience lol.

Not really, ranged, casters, and melee all compete for the same 4 spots of a full party. If a ranged job isn't up to snuff then you can easily replace them with a melee job, but you can't say that about replacing tanks and healers with dps jobs regarding savage level content since the former needs 2 tanks to deal with tankbusters, and the latter is extremely difficult if not borderline impossible to solo heal in E11S and E12S

[Jirah]

The problem with the rangers are how unfun they are to play. The passive job role party buff is the biggest reason to bring them. Unless you are required to use Troubadour in a fight, there is almost no reason to bring them. However that is conundrum of most ShB job changes. They are balanced but boring to play.

BRD is alright, SHB removed the mana concern and the straight arrow buff bar but still retained its play-style somewhat, DNC is incredibly safe and non threatening constantly rivals MCH for being the easiest job however DNC is better structured and has support while MCH is just a heavily padded ogcd gcd cluster fudge but worst of all of all it has fan support so there is little to no promises to improve it so theyll just add a AOE and call it a day

[Payotz]

The thing about physical ranged is that they pretty much took out what made physical ranged "physical ranged". They basically turned the DPS utility jobs into beginner DPS jobs, and I personally don't like what they've become.

It used to be a role that handle mechanics so melees don't have to disengage and casters don't have to move.
It used to be the job that has utility with mitigation, CC with Heavy, Silence, Blind or Knockback or resource generation with MP/TP.
There used to only be two jobs in the role, so the idea was that if you like the RNG proc based gameplay with more party dps you go with BRD, and if you like the static 60-90 minute rotation that hits a lot harder with personal dps, you go with MCH.

In my opinion, the role should NOT designed with the usual class design of Selfish>Middle of the two> Pure support, at all, because they can't actually turn MCH into a pure DPS due to it being the easiest DPS in the game, and if you add damage utility on MCH as it is, then BRD gets absolutely shafted just like how it was on launch.

There's really only a couple of ways I can think of that can give Physical Ranged back their identity and make them rewarding:

1. Bring back Utility. Reintroduce old utility back to the role like Palisade, and reintroduce job specific mitigations that aren't the same reskin of Troubadour. Have Dismantle and resplit it into Rend Mind and have them back into 60 seconds cd, and maybe introduce the old SB BRD Troubadour that mitigates based on the song that is playing, and maybe for DNC have two abilities that has Curing Waltz affect the rest of the party and maybe add regen or shields on top of the Curing Waltz heal. Maybe even just subtle buffs like Peloton being usable in combat as well. Obviously this is just a suggestion, but the main point is to add more utility to the job, re-establishing it as THE Utility DPS.

2.Bring back Mechanics that will benefit from a Ranged Physical handling it. Notable examples would be BJ/CC Superjump, O11S Panto baits, or maybe even just positioning, like painting the Siren on O6S, Taking a kind of Prey/Flare mechanic from the party, or just plain applying a heavy on an add like in T7. This will add a LOT more gameplay to Physical Ranged, add more responsibility to the phys ranged player and will also justify their mobility and a spot at the party aside from just a 1% buff that you can't control.

3.Adding back resource management to the game.Look, I hate TP as much as the next guy, but TP management being non-existant in SB does mean that Physical Ranged has less responsibility because they don't pop Tactician or a TP song anymore. I doubt that they're gonna reimplement TP back into the game, so let's focus a lot more on MP management. Lessen the impact of Piety to Healers so there's a reason for Physical Ranged to be in the party. Maybe have an ability add 5000 more mana to the party. Maybe have it so that mana costs get reduced for either healing or damage spells for 10 seconds. Something like that.

I honestly think physical ranged damage is fine right now, the only real problem is that they don't have any gameplay that supplements their lack of damage compared to other roles. They just need something more than an uncontrollable 1% dps and the occasional interject in the raid in order to feel satisfying. Hell, we can see this right now with Tanks and Healers despite them being dumbed down. Even with lower DPS, Tanks still have the responsibility of boss movement when fights allow it, and Healers have the responsibility of balancing healing and dps in fights such as E11S during early prog. I honestly think that this mentality can work for physical ranged.

[ssunny2008]

Snip

You missed my point somehow. I don´t want to argue about easy or not and the dps situation and i´ve said, that everyone get rewarded with a dead boss so. But how does phys. range give you the feeling of getting rewarded?

Lets be real. Imo there is not that much space to improve with a phys. range to get a "rewarded feeling". In case of DNC or BRD you do even rely on the performance of the other DPS to increase your rDPS. You don´t have stuff like TN, RoE, triplecast,a port to other party members or whatever to increase your DPS by playing well and using such tools.

So imagine you gonna be in line with the others in DPS. Imagine you get better or more raidbuffs / medigation. Maybe even a new feature with a skill to use in the end, but is that enough to "feel rewarded"?! For me it wouldn´t be enough.
The point is, you still play your rotation down without any real adjustments or the pressure by certain mechanics thanks to the high mobility, range and no casting times. A flat damage increase or more buttons wouldn´t be more like that to me. It´s not that i improved in some way, the devs just buffed the class with flat damage or some extra buttons i use on cd.

It might be ok in the beginning, you´re gonna be happy with bigger numbers, more tools and you might feel more useful to the party or whatever. But what happens with some time? It would getting stale pretty fast.
As example, melee / caster fights are more like "20k dps start, 21k dps improved, 22k dps mastered the fight." You improved and this is a great feeling obviously. You can be proud of your performance and having a new color at fflogs.
Phys. range on the other hand are like "22k dps start, 22k dps improved, 22k dps mastered the fight". There is no space and no tools to improve due to missed requirements.

That means, phys. ranges would need a solid rework in my eyes with less mobility, requirements and stuff they need to care about. Not just another job specific tool where you press button X at limit Y. TP management wouldn´t be an issue too, it would just change the rotation a bit.
We need something where players can improve/adjust with and you can see a clear gap between beginners / mastered the class and bossfight. Otherwise such a thread will appear even after some buffs like "Yeah we´ve dps now, but the phys. ranges are still boring and unrewarding in some way."
An easy example could be distance-based damage. You´ve some tools where you need to get closer to the boss and some where you´ve to stay away. Atleast this would make use from the mobility and fit the classes in some way. For some mechanics you´ll get that dps-saving button like TN or TC, otherwise you´ve to adjust your rotation. But i would expect a lot of threads against such a requirement popping up immediately.