There's a huge Physical range shortage in PF and Statics

[Connor]

Physical ranged as a whole needs looked at or just reworked entirely. The latter is 99.999% not gonna happen but honestly I think it needs to.

I mean how do they ever expect people to value a role whose only draw is ‘you can jump while you attack ’ even though every role can jump while they attack lol. What else does it have? DPS uptime? Like Summoner and Red Mage? Support? Like Dragoon and Reaper? Easy rotations? Tell that to Machinists lol

They certainly aren’t going to take us for Peloton or Damage Reduction Role Skill (Troubadour etc lol).

That seems like a symptom of a much deeper issue than simply potencies if you ask me. I worry that the devs are just going to repeat history and create a flip-flop buff war between Bard and Dancer where they’re constantly having to adjust one to compete with the other until one or the other - or both - reaches astronomical levels and they have to pop the power creep balloon and start again the next expansion, usually with significant changes (or removals) to their toolkit.

Do you think Yoshi-P stays in Heaven because he fears what he created? (phys ranged lol). It’s like the devs have this constant terror that ranged phys is going to break the game again so they just keep making it worse and worse so people don’t stack it lol.

Personally my opinion is that they should stop desperately trying to squish us into holes we don’t fit lol. They keep trying to balance the ranged physical role as if they’re full on pure dps in the same capacity as Ninjas, Dragoons, Reapers, etc. If they gave up trying to give us the illusion that we can be top dps and lean more into the ranged phys as the ‘support dps’, it’d have a reason to actually exist outside of just being a category for ‘attackers that aren’t as good as everyone else’. Machinist would naturally remain as the ‘selfish phys ranged’ that has no support capabilities so people who want to be a ranged without supporting can still do so (without having to become casters lol)

[CKNovel]

Physical ranged as a whole needs looked at or just reworked entirely. The latter is 99.999% not gonna happen but honestly I think it needs to.

I mean how do they ever expect people to value a role whose only draw is ‘you can jump while you attack ’ even though every role can jump while they attack lol. What else does it have? DPS uptime? Like Summoner and Red Mage? Support? Like Dragoon and Reaper? Easy rotations? Tell that to Machinists lol

It's kind of a basis that ranged role is just a subDPS and subSupport.
Deals less DPS and provide less support than any other role but it has worthless mobility only useful to themselves that only serves to run in circle in front of the bosses and we have yet to see mechanics to be baited since... O11S?

There is multiple solutions:
A - Give ranged more DPS to fit with the other roles
Mobility Tax is deprecated in a design where BLM has crazy utility, PLD can go on ranged mode half of its rotation and SMN exists.
Since people still plays BLM/SAM despite the jobs being undertuned, be reassured that "double ranged" won't be the meta even if Ranged DPS is through the roof.
The current Meta isn't Reaper + Monk. Surprise, there is less MNK than SAM, proving yet again that people plays the job they want.

B - Keep the DPS low, but focus on utility
Shielding, strong mitigation, healing...
Ranged are supposed to be "Support DPS" yet MCH offers nothing, BRD doesn't offers more than SMN or RDM.
Focusing on party survival can make the range role valuable to the group.

You could also give the ranged a gimmick like how Melees have positionals or casters have casts.
Right now, there is only 1 reason to play Ranged and that's the 1% stats buff. If it wasn't there, you would see less ranged.
I play the job I enjoy and I don't enjoy being the burden of the group.