7.0 We need new caster and ranged dps balance the score

[Ultimatecalibur]

Isn't many opinions left to pull from at this point. tanks having 4 healers have 4 casters have 3.

No we do not. Ranged jobs are actually the most prevalent role right now if you consider that casters and physical ranged are actually subsets of that role.

• 4 tanks (PLD, WAR, DRK and GNB)
• 4 healers (WHM, SCH, AST and SGE)
• 5 melee (DRG, RPR, MNK, SAM and NIN)
• 6 ranged (BRD, MCH and DNC + BLM, RDM and SMN)

I expect the limit on full jobs is something like 20 total jobs as we are already seeing them run into the limit on their ability to create new weapons for 17 jobs. We do not really need any more casters or physical ranged full jobs. At most we might see 1 more melee job .

[Grimoire-M]

No we do not. Ranged jobs are actually the most prevalent role right now if you consider that casters and physical ranged are actually subsets of that role.

• 4 tanks (PLD, WAR, DRK and GNB)
• 4 healers (WHM, SCH, AST and SGE)
• 5 melee (DRG, RPR, MNK, SAM and NIN)
• 6 ranged (BRD, MCH and DNC + BLM, RDM and SMN)

I expect the limit on full jobs is something like 20 total jobs as we are already seeing them run into the limit on their ability to create new weapons for 17 jobs. We do not really need any more casters or physical ranged full jobs. At most we might see 1 more melee job .

Ranged are explicitly split into two categories, Magical and Physical Ranged respectively. This is because of Limit Break and Party Composition. SE has designed 8man content around 2 Tank/2 Healer/2 Melee/1 Caster/1 Ranged since ARR's launch, but modern standards allow us to assume the second melee slot is a flex pick. In addition, Blue Mage is a limited job, and therefore intentionally excluded from current content. As such, Victoria is at least right that we need a new caster and ranged DPS job. What I think SE should do, however, is only add one job from here on, unless they're planning on adding more tanks and healers (who really need attention, even Sage couldn't escape their homogeneity). At this point we only need one more of each DPS role, so spacing it out would be better, but if I were to ask for two jobs in 7.0, I would want a Scouting Melee DPS and a Caster DPS, as Scouting is the only melee armor set without a second job option at the moment. It would also allow more focus on reworking and tuning jobs to be more appropriate in all content.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Ranged are explicitly split into two categories, Magical and Physical Ranged respectively. This is because of Limit Break and Party Composition. SE has designed 8man content around 2 Tank/2 Healer/2 Melee/1 Caster/1 Ranged since ARR's launch, but modern standards allow us to assume the second melee slot is a flex pick. In addition, Blue Mage is a limited job, and therefore intentionally excluded from current content. As such, Victoria is at least right that we need a new caster and ranged DPS job. What I think SE should do, however, is only add one job from here on, unless they're planning on adding more tanks and healers (who really need attention, even Sage couldn't escape their homogeneity). At this point we only need one more of each DPS role, so spacing it out would be better, but if I were to ask for two jobs in 7.0, I would want a Scouting Melee DPS and a Caster DPS, as Scouting is the only melee armor set without a second job option at the moment. It would also allow more focus on reworking and tuning jobs to be more appropriate in all content.

We do not need a new caster. Due, to as you point out, Full party content being intended to be done by 8 players made up of 2 tanks, 1 regen healer, 1 shield healer, 2 melee, 1 ranged physical and 1 caster, ideal job distribution should be divided up into 25% tanks, 12.5% regen healers, 12.5% shield healers, 25% melee, 12.5% ranged physical and 12.5% casters. This is not really possible as DpS jobs are more popular than tanks and healers so the EW role percentages are ~21% tanks, ~10.5% regen healers, ~10.5% shield healers, ~26.3% melee, ~15.7% physical ranged and ~15.7% casters.

Never have we ever considered casters and ranged physical DPS
.it's 3 ranged physical and 3 casters. They fill different roles in a party

They are sub-roles of ranged just like how healers have sub-roles of shield and pure/regen and tanks in theory had sub-roles of Main tank and Off tank. The physical/magical ranged split is actually one of the best examples of proper sub-role balance to the point most players do not realize that they are acually sub-roles.

[Grimoire-M]

We do not need a new caster. Due, to as you point out, Full party content being intended to be done by 8 players made up of...

I said SE designs content with 2 melee DPS in mind. I did not say they -require- two melee DPS in their compositions. You can clear content at min-ilvl with triple ranged + WHM/WAR and whatever other tank/healer/dps trio does the least DPS out of the rest in any given patch if you wanted. Hell, I've cleared Savage content with Triple Caster + Melee, as the Summoner filling in the 'physical ranged' slot, including being the mana battery of the group (RIP Mana Shift). These things are not hard and fast rules.

The physical/magical ranged split is actually one of the best examples of proper sub-role balance to the point most players do not realize that they are acually sub-roles.

That's because they are not actually sub-roles. Are two mechanics in game that call out our roles explicitly. The Party Stat bonus, and Limit Break generation. You can run Sage/Scholar and White Mage/Astrologian and still get the full benefit of those buffs because the only thing nebulously defining healer 'sub-roles' is having specific GCD spells with a secondary bonus. There are Limit Break generation penalties for not filling out the Party Bonus sheet as well as for taking duplicate classes. There's also the potential conflicts that come with specific compositions, like how Red Mage needs to be in melee sometimes and therefore doesn't play nice with Double Melee, how Multiple Ranged kinda suck at baseline DPS and therefore really need to play well at lower item levels. Meanwhile Black Mage, Ninja, Monk, and White Mage all have mechanical strategies built around them in some cases (Some openers have only been optimal with a NIN), or how Summoner, Paladin, Dancer, and Red Mage each offer specific utility that makes them more popular by default.

The only differential within roles is playstyles, in which all healers and tanks overlap fairly significantly with a core toolset with minor nuances. SGE/SCH will overlap heavily like WHM/AST do right now. Melee DPS and Tanks have suffered from Combo spam adding significant button bloat since ARR. Meanwhile Ranged DPS only really share cosmetically different raid actions. All caster DPS have Fire and Flare spells but otherwise play completely differently. They're actually the most diverse roles of them all.

My reason for saying all three DPS roles need another job was simple: Every Role needs at least 4 non-limited jobs represented, and every Gearset needs at least two jobs to change between. As a result, NIN needs a friend, and we have a caster and ranged slot that need a fourth job. That's fairly simple to understand. Ordering suggests Caster > Ranged > Melee because Casters haven't gotten a non-limited job since Red Mage in Stormblood and Reaper means we can delay the Scouting melee DPS a bit longer.

That said, again, I do not think we need two jobs next expansion. The only reason I'd even want that is if they were planning on adding more tanks and healers, and I do not think we have room for any more of those without dipping into frankly strange territory. Seriously, what Tank and Healer job concept do we -really- have left that isn't already covered at least as a sub-theme within the current ones? Freelancer??? Honestly that would just be a limited job for a universal glamour experience, including being able to use any other job's animation in the game. Only getting one DPS job for the next three expansions is perfectly fine while they figure out how to get the other two roles right and it leaves SE plenty of time for them to rework other beloved DPS jobs into the ground, and Summoner again, probably.

[Beddict]

No we do not. Ranged jobs are actually the most prevalent role right now if you consider that casters and physical ranged are actually subsets of that role.

• 4 tanks (PLD, WAR, DRK and GNB)
• 4 healers (WHM, SCH, AST and SGE)
• 5 melee (DRG, RPR, MNK, SAM and NIN)
• 6 ranged (BRD, MCH and DNC + BLM, RDM and SMN)

I expect the limit on full jobs is something like 20 total jobs as we are already seeing them run into the limit on their ability to create new weapons for 17 jobs. We do not really need any more casters or physical ranged full jobs. At most we might see 1 more melee job .

To further back up what Grimoire-M is saying, Yoshi-P talked about the Roles prior to Shadowbringers. From Letter from the Producer, LXII (05/09/2019):

Only Two Physical Ranged DPS Jobs Are Currently Implemented

As of Stormblood, there are three tank, three healer, four melee DPS, three magical ranged DPS, and two physical ranged DPS jobs. We believe that there is value in adding another physical ranged DPS to improve the balance of available roles, and so we decided to use one of our two new jobs to fill this need.

While the community may lump Physical Ranged and Casters into one category, Yoshi-P and the dev team clearly do not.

[Lastelli]

To further back up what Grimoire-M is saying, Yoshi-P talked about the Roles prior to Shadowbringers. From Letter from the Producer, LXII (05/09/2019):



While the community may lump Physical Ranged and Casters into one category, Yoshi-P and the dev team clearly do not.

And even in this case, the devs would be wrong and out of touch, as the distinction between ph. ranged and casters is just formal at this point, especially after SMN basically becoming a caster without casting times and RDM not casting anything for like 70% of the time thanks to dualcast and their melee combo + finishers.

Now if they want to turn casters into actual casters and introduce magical/physical resistance/weakness in boss fights in 7.0, there might be some room for argument.

[Beddict]

And even in this case, the devs would be wrong and out of touch, as the distinction between ph. ranged and casters is just formal at this point, especially after SMN basically becoming a caster without casting times and RDM not casting anything for like 70% of the time thanks to dualcast and their melee combo + finishers.

Now if they want to turn casters into actual casters and introduce magical/physical resistance/weakness in boss fights in 7.0, there might be some room for argument.

No argument there. SE is doing their best to blur the lines between Caster and Physical Ranged, especially with Endwalker. SMN is looking like it'll have a lot of short casts and instant casts, and RDM is getting even more utility in Magick Barrier. They keep this shit up and the only thing differentiating the two Roles will be the shape of their Limit Breaks. But despite that, SE is absolutely stubborn enough to keep saying the Roles are totally different, even if the community is calling bullshit. I don't agree with them, but that is unfortunately their stance on the matter.

[Taranok]

No argument there. SE is doing their best to blur the lines between Caster and Physical Ranged, especially with Endwalker. SMN is looking like it'll have a lot of short casts and instant casts, and RDM is getting even more utility in Magick Barrier. They keep this shit up and the only thing differentiating the two Roles will be the shape of their Limit Breaks. But despite that, SE is absolutely stubborn enough to keep saying the Roles are totally different, even if the community is calling bullshit. I don't agree with them, but that is unfortunately their stance on the matter.

I wouldn't call it blurring the lines so much as: "The encounter designers are forcing heavy amounts of movement, and without making casters also capable of heavy amounts of movement, they break in our current encounter design." It's the same reason all tanking mitigation and healer toolkits are almost literal carbon copies of each other. The encounter design forces the class designers to do silly things, which in turn is forcing encounter designers to continue doing silly things. If this is kept up, eventually BLM will literally need to be mostly instant cast spells and won't be that far removed from MCH. They also maybe threw the baby out with the bathwater on SMN design. SMN was about 20-33% free movement in ShB, and it's going to be closer to 85% free movement in EW. They might reign it in later.

[zcrash970]

No we do not. Ranged jobs are actually the most prevalent role right now if you consider that casters and physical ranged are actually subsets of that role.

• 4 tanks (PLD, WAR, DRK and GNB)
• 4 healers (WHM, SCH, AST and SGE)
• 5 melee (DRG, RPR, MNK, SAM and NIN)
• 6 ranged (BRD, MCH and DNC + BLM, RDM and SMN)

I expect the limit on full jobs is something like 20 total jobs as we are already seeing them run into the limit on their ability to create new weapons for 17 jobs. We do not really need any more casters or physical ranged full jobs. At most we might see 1 more melee job .

Never have we ever considered casters and ranged physical DPS
.it's 3 ranged physical and 3 casters. They fill different roles in a party

[VictoriaLuv]

Actually no we don't need more melee dps we already have 6 + 4 tanks watch are basically melee dps with defensive cooldowns at this point.

you have 3. ranged dps and 3 caster dps there are different in everyway. its foolish to think they are in same category when they play completely different have different roles in actual combat