The unrewarding state of physical ranged

[Payotz]

I won´t call it so hard subjectively seen. Of course i´ve written "for me", but the thing is, that FF14 doesn´t offer much of a deep gameplay and i agree that you can easily learn a lot of classes at the dummies. Rotations can be learned from anyone. Proccs are just buttons you press as fast as you can. The so called "skill" is more up to decision-making if things goes down under or to find the perfect strategy / spot to beat a boss. Unique gameplay has become really rare with all the class and boss changes. The current monk is a joke yes, but permanent positionals and the decision about SSS/FS/chakra/TN and RoE are atleast something you can work with.

I mean you can't really add "for me" and then present it as fact. That's just shielding an opinion and presenting it as fact.

I agree with all you've said about BLM, but honestly, the "decision making" for True North and SSS and RoE isn't really decision making at all. It's pretty much a cooldown you press at a specific time in the fight timeline to gain uptime. That's all it is. If Chakra wasn't 100% every crit then I'd say you'd have some decision making to do due to it being unpredictable, but honestly all of these decision making skills you're talking about are the same as popping Surecast in a fight, or popping Addle during Relativity. It's all just static buttons you press regardless.

Procs have a lot more thinking involved due to its unpredictable nature. You don't press the button as fast as you can, you actually think about a lot of things.

Can I fit Iron Jaws in if I immediately use up the RA Proc?

Should I save my WM stacks to bait for a 3rd proc or should I blast it and be safe?

Hmmm, do I do my melee GCD proc first or do I use up Espiritus?

How much do I need to delay Technical Finish so I can use this GCD proc, and if I do, do I lose a use of it in the fight?

Do I also delay Flourish to use this feather? But if I do, I'll lose a GCD proc hard and I'll delay my dances more.

These are pretty much just a few scenarios off the top of my head that can come up during raid. It's just the nature of a proc-based/priority based job, and honestly I see that as decision making, rather than weaving in RoE during a raid wide.

[ssunny2008]

I mean you can't really add "for me" and then present it as fact. That's just shielding an opinion and presenting it as fact.

That´s why i´ve written "hard". Of course there is some taste of an own opinion, but i think we can agree, that a lot of stuff goes into the wrong direction objectively seen.

snip

It´s not about such monk skills only, it´s the combination with the lack of range, permanent positionals and a handful of skills which help to hold / increase your dps. And going into a short downtime with SSS, FS or that 0,5s greed with unforbidden chakra makes a difference.

You´re getting used to your examples very quickly too. On the other hand, the game might hate you. Maybe you just get only 2/3 proccs, sometimes you get like 10 bloodletter resets, the next song like 1. The game could love you aswell and as longer the fight goes on, it might be 50/50 in the end. But it still isn´t unique or deep in some way.
Buffs are another topic. The standard is to unleash them immediately unless you know about downtime in the next 5s or so. To "plan" those buffs is more kind of a decent strategy with a decent group, but never needed in any fight. E11s is a good example and really depends on the other players / classes for me. Either i´ll delay all my cooldowns till prismatic is over to come together with DRG or AST raidbuffs or i don´t. If i do, i´m going to miss one burstwindow in the end before the enrage shows up. But this doesn´t matter if we kill the boss 1 minute earlier. But then you´ve that low DPS group and any delay would be counter-productive.
But here again, it might be the players decision, you could even call it "a more skilled player" to think about such stuff. But the game doesn´t force it by itself and it´s not something the class design is offering to you. It´s raid optimization.

To be full melee with permanent positionals or being that static BLM together with a handful of skills to play around certain boss mechanics is what makes such classes way more unique than others in kind of the gameplay design. Even RDM`s design is unique with melee and range, but it´s still too static. It would be another thing if you couldn´t use your range spells as long as you´re in melee range, but so...

Imo phys. range subclasses has nothing unique, just gimmicks. The core design is to be that free mobility class without any casting times and that´s it.
What would you say if bard gets those distance based multipliers on some skills?
Or DNC who would have partner based skill like "play close to him" or "on the opposite at the boss, so a bond between you and your partner will damage him"?
Even MCH could work with a bond on his robot. Or let him build a fat transformer within the fight and the evolution (Optimus, Megatron, Omega?!) depends on the order you summon other turrets or robots.

It´s not much brain involved in such ideas imo, but it´s a deeper class based design than being those procc related classes with a lots of freedom and single gimmicks. The songs / dance designs are pretty cool, fit the classes und could be so unique too. But in the end it´s just a shallow implementation to spread some groupbuffs.

[Dogempire]

The Shadowbringers ranged role is just a failure as a whole, honestly. Ranged offers literally nothing impactful that other dps jobs can offer.

Mitigation? Casters and Melee have it too

Damage utility? Other jobs have it

Raising people? That'll always be a caster thing

MP support? Removed in Shadowbringers launch

TP Regen? Removed in the last expansion

Extra healing? Monk offers that too

The ranged role needs something impactful to make it worth taking other than some welfare 1% party stats buff.

Heck I wouldn't even be mad if ranged dps at least were the only dps jobs with a mitigation skill, but nope, even Black Mage, you know, the greedy dps job with no utility, has a damage mitigation skill.

[Payotz]

It´s not about such monk skills only, it´s the combination with the lack of range, permanent positionals and a handful of skills which help to hold / increase your dps. And going into a short downtime with SSS, FS or that 0,5s greed with unforbidden chakra makes a difference.

I mean we're talking about decision making. The combination of all of these makes a job but it doesn't imbue it with meaningful decision making. It's still static as you literally just press the same buttons everytime, regardless of what happens in the fight.

You´re getting used to your examples very quickly too. On the other hand, the game might hate you. Maybe you just get only 2/3 proccs, sometimes you get like 10 bloodletter resets, the next song like 1. The game could love you aswell and as longer the fight goes on, it might be 50/50 in the end. But it still isn´t unique or deep in some way.

I honestly disagree. The very fact that there's a "maybe you get a proc" screams decision making to me. You go in with a plan of action, and you immediately have to think on the fly if the proc occurs. Having a wrench thrown into your planned rotation and not being able to rely on most of your kit to be active when you want to tells me that you have to think on the fly and act quickly when the proc occurs or does not occur. That's decision making. You're planning the finer details of your rotation in that specific moment of the fight, in that specific pull, NOT at the practice dummy. Whether or not it occurs again is out of your control, you just have to deal with it.

Buffs are another topic. The standard is to unleash them immediately unless you know about downtime in the next 5s or so. To "plan" those buffs is more kind of a decent strategy with a decent group, but never needed in any fight

I mean you can just do the bare minimum of the job and you can probably clear E9S eventually. You can go ahead and hit no positionals for MNK and still do minimum damage, you can just spam Armor crush and never go for a rear positional for a NIN and you'll still probably clear. Hell, you can probably have a WHM just put their dots up and just dps using Misery and the WHM will still clear. It doesn't mean that I can also go ahead and say that melees don't have positionals nor that the WHM has no Glare. A grey parse is still a clear.

Imo phys. range subclasses has nothing unique, just gimmicks. The core design is to be that free mobility class without any casting times and that´s it.

That's because they tore out ranged physical's identity. They used to be the DPS utility. That's their whole design, but they pretty much just threw that under the bus.
I would love nothing more than to have that identity back, and be expanded on top of it.

What would you say if bard gets those distance based multipliers on some skills?
Or DNC who would have partner based skill like "play close to him" or "on the opposite at the boss, so a bond between you and your partner will damage him"?
Even MCH could work with a bond on his robot. Or let him build a fat transformer within the fight and the evolution (Optimus, Megatron, Omega?!) depends on the order you summon other turrets or robots.

The thing about these mechs is that these all scream gimmicks to me, and they also have to pretty much overhaul the entire game for the sake of one role when they can just pretty much revert the role to the previous, much liked iteration.
The whole BRD distance based multipliers will clash against healer design, as most of the time you have to get close for heavy healing phases.

The whole MCH just worsens the Queen problem in its entirety. Queen right now is a clunky mess that bugs literally on the first tier of the expansion, and fucks over any add phase due to it being buggy. Adding SMN's and SCH's ghosting pet ai problems on top if it will just make the job even worse.

Honestly, the whole DNC thing is probably the most sane out of the suggestions, and I can definitely see it happening, but it just feels arbitrary. A physical ranged having their mobility restricted by its own kit feels terrible, and I would honestly prefer for raid mechanics themselves to restrict mobility, or outright abuse it.

They're all gimmicky in their own way, but I would honestly see it happening if it was in another game that's not FF14. With how bad the server ticks, the Pet AI and numerous other issues in this game are, I really can't see the mechanics work as intended 90% of the time in raids.

I would honestly prefer them to just give back what already worked and loved rather than do something new that will actually make the role pretty much unplayable.

[Rika007]

I would honestly prefer them to just give back what already worked and loved rather than do something new that will actually make the role pretty much unplayable.

Preach. I bet right now, even if rDPS contribution of ranged was still the lowest of all roles, but was only a few percentage points below the lower melee's and casters of DRG, NIN, and RDM, and Bard and Machinist were given back the support kits they lost from Stormblood? You would instantly see a massive reduction in complaints about Ranged DPS. Sure there will still be calls for cleaning up rotational problems (Bard's issues with over capping, Machinist and ping related problems), and of course there is always some complaints, but most players ranged players just want the job they fell in love with back.

[Rai_Takara]

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

They don't. That's why the 1% buff exists. You can't omit a role without a penalty. That penalty, along with reduced LB generation is far worse than having a lower performing DPS (better to bring that 25th melee for that 1% rather than replace him with a 75th caster).

Ranged compete for the ranged spot.
Casters for the caster spot.
Melee of the melee spot.

The 4th spot is a free slot. This usually goes to the higher DPS of course, like caster or melee, but ranged isn't uncommon. Regardless, every role has a spot secured.

Mitigation? Casters and Melee have it too

You surely must be joking if you ignore that ranged DPS is the only DPS sans healers that can mitigate damage regardless of type and without needing a boss to target. Feint is useless 9/10 so even that isn't something melees can count on.

The ranged role needs something impactful to make it worth taking other than some welfare 1% party stats buff.

The 1% is impactful. Bringing us for the 1% is exactly the same as bringing us for mobility or bringing us for some one off skill like MP refresh. In fact, more impactful because unlike a ranged who refuses to press their support buttons, at least the 1% is guaranteed regardless of player skill.

[Dogempire]

The 1% is impactful. Bringing us for the 1% is exactly the same as bringing us for mobility or bringing us for some one off skill like MP refresh. In fact, more impactful because unlike a ranged who refuses to press their support buttons, at least the 1% is guaranteed regardless of player skill.

Let me put it this way, make ranged impactful without making the role get a shoe-in because of the XIV equivalent of affirmative action. A class being required because of a 1% buff that would otherwise be dropped without it isn't actually being chosen on merit, but rather on welfare.

Ranged isn't any more useful than the other roles, it doesn't do more damage, it isn't a better support, it doesn't mitigate better, it just gives a 1% buff.

[Rika007]

The 1% is impactful. Bringing us for the 1% is exactly the same as bringing us for mobility or bringing us for some one off skill like MP refresh. In fact, more impactful because unlike a ranged who refuses to press their support buttons, at least the 1% is guaranteed regardless of player skill.

Sorry, I know this is your opinion but what a terrible take and depressing if that is the actual reason why we lost so many of our support skills. That's like saying, "Hey, skilled players who enjoyed and took advantage of things like Foe's Requiem, original hyper charge, refresh, palisade, dismantle, original troubadour, etc? We understand you love these abilities and that you've put a lot of work into learning and getting the best use out of them, but because a bunch of really bad players never bothered pressing them anyway, we're gonna take that away from you. But don't worry, we're gonna give you another buff. You get it just by existing. and those bad players who never learned how to play your job properly? They get it too."

I'm sorry but if that's the justification, then every ranged player who takes umbrage with it has 100% justification to complain about it. Delete skill expression and lower the ceiling just because bad players couldn't be bothered? I wouldn't care if it gave a 5% damage buff. That's just garbage.

[Mahoukenshi]

Sorry, I know this is your opinion but what a terrible take and depressing if that is the actual reason why we lost so many of our support skills. That's like saying, "Hey, skilled players who enjoyed and took advantage of things like Foe's Requiem, original hyper charge, refresh, palisade, dismantle, original troubadour, etc? We understand you love these abilities and that you've put a lot of work into learning and getting the best use out of them, but because a bunch of really bad players never bothered pressing them anyway, we're gonna take that away from you. But don't worry, we're gonna give you another buff. You get it just by existing. and those bad players who never learned how to play your job properly? They get it too."

I'm sorry but if that's the justification, then every ranged player who takes umbrage with it has 100% justification to complain about it. Delete skill expression and lower the ceiling just because bad players couldn't be bothered? I wouldn't care if it gave a 5% damage buff. That's just garbage.

As a proud bad-skilled player, I wholeheartly agree with this post. A 1% pity bonus just for being there, no matter how good/bad one plays sounds quite depressing.

[Kabooa]

Foe's Requiem, original hyper charge, refresh, palisade, dismantle, original troubadour, etc?.

I mean, Foe Requiem might be the only thing on that list that's worth calling out.

Lets not pretend Hyper Charge was popular with Stormblood machinist. I liked the thing, but I was definitely in the minority.

Dismantle vs Tactician, tactician wins out. You can pin point things better with dismantle, but you can't target untargetables, you can't affect multiple enemies. It always protects all of your party members, it protects against all damage (Unlike Feint and Addle, which have all the weaknesses of Dismantle with a worse cooldown by comparison), and Troubadour is better off as the flavor variant than "I really hope the boss agrees with my dps rotation" Troubadour. Maybe you could make the argument that Machinist has room for both, but given how much weight people put on having comparable DPS contribution in the end, that's just making Machinist better than the other two.

The attribute bonus is a perma-bandaid. That's it. It ensures role diversity even when things are terribly out of whack. It is a singular lever in the total package that goes into tuning, but at the end of the day it ensures representation.

Theoretically it allows them to take bigger risks in design with a wider margin of results, though they do not take advantage of this.