What even is the purpose of all those non melee/blm jobs?

[ForteNightshade]

I'm going to be pedantic, but technically it was the Dragoon that was busted. Without what the DRG brought, BRD was still lagging behind. Less so than MCH for the reasons you stated (crit procs out of control and bad itemization), but still.

Yes and no. Even without Dragoon, Bard's damage in the later tiers of Stormblood was absolutely ridiculous. Nevertheless, I wouldn't credit Bard's dominance to Dragoon even with Piercing because it wasn't like the Dragoon went out of its way to apply Piercing. They simply did their basic 123, which they were always going to do, and bam, Bard got better.

Either way, the point still stands that Bard was simply a far more complete job in Stormblood than any iteration since—piercing or otherwise. What a good number of players want is the support aspect back. Which the dev team is either stubborn about due to the perception it's "too difficult for new players" or oblivious too.

[Shurrikhan]

I don't feel like Stormblood Refresh or Tactician were ever fun.

The Bard simply hit their enmity reduction on CD and thus everyone else was allowed to actually play the game for 2 minutes more... assuming they didn't have too much Skill Speed. It felt neither fun nor "supportive" to me as the Bard main, nor did it feel fun or supported just to be made dependent on a battery that offered no actual gameplay outside of the physical range existing and occasionally pressing their CD.

The same could be said for Piercing, especially after level 50, since you'd always open with Disembowel's combo and/or spread Chaos Thrust's DoT anyways. To be supportive, it feels like it'd have to be an actual choice, not something done automatically that just modestly obliges set compositions -- which ultimately just means more exclusion or diminished ability to play one's job due to forces outside one's control.

It feels like XIV has too often confused the latter for "support," only to then trim down support entirely when usually the key to allowing for real support options is to instead increase the underlying complexities with which encounters and class kits engage.

Granted, the latter is harder. All meaningful choice is, after all, difficult to design.

Sidenote: That being said, by the time Stormblood rolled around, we evaluated jobs by raid DPS, not their personal DPS. By that measure, Dragoon was "dependent on" a double-Ranged comp, not the other way around. Bard, especially, was already a strong choice on its own.

[Godzillaxpowerrangers]

I wounder if mch became gun mage again would they let them do more damage. I would say bow mage as well but dont want to get jumped.

[Shurrikhan]

I wounder if mch became gun mage again would they let them do more damage. I would say bow mage as well but dont want to get jumped.

Unlikely, as there's been no "taxation" specific and consistently applied to hypermobility, utility, or even access to rez.

Physical ranged seemed to be taxed now for their ease of use and slightly-greater-than-SMN movement second and for tradition first, so I'm not sure how much could be reclaimed even by giving them the option of a sniper stance. Also, DNC is still a thing, on which anything like WM/GB would be... an ill fit, to say the least.

[Kalaam]

Honestly something similar to PvP cast bar with lowered move speed could work. Or a "if you stand still the whole cast you do more damage, if you move (full speed) you do less".
It'd require some rework 'cause you can't weave during a cast, but maybe overcharge could make all casts instant during the effect so you can weave freely while shooting at full damage.

[Valence]

Failing to heal or tank is also not their actions directly affecting your rotation, it is the kill that affects it.

That's some serious sophistry at this point. When you run out of MP, it's not the other player that forgot to regen your MP, it's the MP that depleted itself first and foremost after all.

Well yeah, it's the same with HP when they're not healed. In any fight situation, you're reliant on somebody else to perform, there isn't much you can argue against it. If your point was that the depletion of HP has more randomness involved and is tied to fight mechanics if I understand correctly, I can grant you that it's probably more engaging than the way resource consumption is designed those days for sure.

[Valence]

I don't feel like Stormblood Refresh or Tactician were ever fun.

The Bard simply hit their enmity reduction on CD and thus everyone else was allowed to actually play the game for 2 minutes more... assuming they didn't have too much Skill Speed. It felt neither fun nor "supportive" to me as the Bard main, nor did it feel fun or supported just to be made dependent on a battery that offered no actual gameplay outside of the physical range existing and occasionally pressing their CD.

The same could be said for Piercing, especially after level 50, since you'd always open with Disembowel's combo and/or spread Chaos Thrust's DoT anyways. To be supportive, it feels like it'd have to be an actual choice, not something done automatically that just modestly obliges set compositions -- which ultimately just means more exclusion or diminished ability to play one's job due to forces outside one's control.

It feels like XIV has too often confused the latter for "support," only to then trim down support entirely when usually the key to allowing for real support options is to instead increase the underlying complexities with which encounters and class kits engage.

Granted, the latter is harder. All meaningful choice is, after all, difficult to design.

Sidenote: That being said, by the time Stormblood rolled around, we evaluated jobs by raid DPS, not their personal DPS. By that measure, Dragoon was "dependent on" a double-Ranged comp, not the other way around. Bard, especially, was already a strong choice on its own.

That's why I prefaced my call back to those gameplay facets of old with that I don't especially support going back to the way it was. HW over SB had the benefit of actually introducing a choice for mana regen, since doing so meant activating Ballad and eating the 15% damage reduction of the song until your MP was down, or promoting the turret to regen MP instead of dealing damage in the case of MCH. you could even pair up Battle Voice with Ballad to double the regen, or Hypercharge with promotion to do it as well. But then again, with the current mindset of players, I don't think this would be received extremely well either because it feels horrible to a lot of people to gimp your dps for mechanics.

I don't especially like fire and forget buttons but at least it felt that you HAD a role and something to do to help. Even if it meant just pressing a dumb button at the correct time, you still had to find the correct time to do it (which is more than any raid buff synergy can even claim to bring because those are on CD), and it felt good to see that your action was making all those party gauges go back up in a satisfying manner (much like when you heal somebody at the correct time). I wouldn't have minded something more elaborate though for sure. I agree with you. On another note though, knowing when to use your regens was actually pretty big especially in progression because casters and healers especially were a lot less conservative with their MP, especially when raising people (but not only).

Piercing/slashing debuffs were a comp monstrosity I'm glad they got rid of.

[Valence]

Also, DNC is still a thing, on which anything like WM/GB would be... an ill fit, to say the least.

What do you mean, just make their chakrams spin and spin and spin while the cast bar is charging

[Mikey_R]

That's some serious sophistry at this point. When you run out of MP, it's not the other player that forgot to regen your MP, it's the MP that depleted itself first and foremost after all.

..because the jobs were designed to run out of MP to require the MP song.

Well yeah, it's the same with HP when they're not healed. In any fight situation, you're reliant on somebody else to perform, there isn't much you can argue against it. If your point was that the depletion of HP has more randomness involved and is tied to fight mechanics if I understand correctly, I can grant you that it's probably more engaging than the way resource consumption is designed those days for sure.

HP isn't really random at all, you know when the spikes in damage will come, you know when that raidwide will come etc. The main point was deaths are a different issue compared to not getting an MP song. The whole party can do the fight perfectly, but when you run out of MP, and that BRD/MCH didn't use the MP regen, your rotation comes to a standstill. You are now sat waiting for that MP tick to get a spell off whilst you wait for Lucid Dreaming's cooldown. You can shout for MP song, but should you really have to? Why is it fair the BLM can go on forever, but SMN/RDM hit a wall? I would say, no, it isn't.

Again, deaths are due to the fight, but a perfectly played fight should not mean you potentially run out. Especially when you get into roulette settings and you aren't guaranteed to get a physical ranged either.

If you don't agree with me, that is fine, I'm not trying to change your mind after all, so it might just be a case of us not having the same view in this aspect.

[Valence]

HP is definitely semi random because of the damage variance (thankfully they removed enemy crits though i'll give you that but I kinda miss their spicy rng incidents). If you know when a raidwide is coming (which means once you've progged it enough, else it's a different story), then you also should be able to tell when your party is going to need resources. It works in the exact same fashion. Sometimes especially during prog, it goes very wrong and the damage spike was higher than expected, you have people dying left and right, and more healing, as well as more party support, are needed. Healers are watching people's health bars, old MP support were watching people's MP and TP bars.

There is literally no difference no matter what. I fail to see your argument completely. In both cases you can be left screwed by someone else's actions, period. If you start arguing against any kind of teamplay, then we should probably turn the game into a single player game where nobody can screw you over (by making you die, or letting you die, or forgetting to support your resources).

If the whole party does the whole fight perfectly, then the resource support will have been done correctly as well, else it's not a perfect run. Same thing with healing, if some people die due to a lack of healing, then even you did the whole fight perfectly on your end, and did a stellar job at support, you still died because somebody else messed up and therefore the fight was not done perfectly.

If I'm left without resources sitting doing nothing, it is not much different than dying due to someone else messing up, and hugging the floor for whatever amount of time the raisers will take to raise you, added to the loading screen, and the vulnerability down. Both were out of my control, both nuked my efficiency to some degree and threw my rotation in shambles. Maybe making it as punishing as a death, though, is what really rubs people wrong here? I could agree with that.

..because the jobs were designed to run out of MP to require the MP song.

That was irony.