The unrewarding state of physical ranged

[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.