Physical Ranged (Also SMN) "Freedom of Movement" Tax

[Aurora428]

Thing is, ranged tax shouldn't exist. At all. It's old, it's antiquated, it's a product of the design of its time. That being said, ranged should have mechanics that promote proper positioning like black mages. Not gun/bow mage like in Heavensward, but something that rewards the ranged player for playing well. A blanket 5% buff isn't going to make phys ranged more desired, machinists and dancers will just suck 5% less and still not be worth bringing to parties. But until ranged tax finally gets removed, the role is going to be the token role for the 1% until the other jobs can make up for that 1% loss. We're already seeing that right now, and as gear becomes stronger, the differences will become more and more pronounced.

The ranged tax isn't "old and antiquated", it was terrible from its conception to today.

It never served a meaningful purpose. It never "leveled the playing field" for melees restriction of movement. It just made the role terrible for no reason.

SE forgets that double prange meta didn't exist in a vacuum, it existed in a time that DRG had pierce resist down and the raid buffs DRG/NIN offered synced up well with BRD/MCH.

What's funny is they reworked SMN to be basically a physical ranged and then actively chose to make it terrible. What exactly was going through their minds?

[Ruminous]

The ranged tax isn't "old and antiquated", it was terrible from its conception to today.

It never served a meaningful purpose. It never "leveled the playing field" for melees restriction of movement. It just made the role terrible for no reason.

SE forgets that double prange meta didn't exist in a vacuum, it existed in a time that DRG had pierce resist down and the raid buffs DRG/NIN offered synced up well with BRD/MCH.

What's funny is they reworked SMN to be basically a physical ranged and then actively chose to make it terrible. What exactly was going through their minds?

True, but at this point, I don't care what it is. I'm just tired of being actively punished because I play the phys ranged role. The spread is just much, much worse now than it was.

[Galvuu]

True, but at this point, I don't care what it is. I'm just tired of being actively punished because I play the phys ranged role. The spread is just much, much worse now than it was.

This is almost reminiscent, to me, of some points raised in the healer strike thread.
FF XIV used to have some content catered to make use of the ranged mobility. A good examples is T7S, where a comp with two mobile dps is very useful to allow you to kite the Renauds without bleeding damage (or, god forbid, using a melee or healer for that if your team has some psychopath who's willing to do that on those roles). But then they realized you couldn't run any random comp, and stopped adding mechanics like that (A6S also had stuff you had to silence with a BRD or MCH). I'm not saying every fight needs to be that way, but one out of four wouldn't hurt.
Again, those mechanics, if added, wouldn't justify the current, awful balance. But I feel that signals encounter design problems too. Perhaps, implicitly, this is what you meant with ARR-design?

[Aurora428]

I think the sad thing is that the devs are aware of the issue, and are aware it is disliked. They even admitted back during the P8S drama that PLD was being range taxed for holy spirit (lol)

The issue has also been extensively discussed on JP forums as well.

The devs know, they just don't care and never intend to fix it. Shadowbringers came out in 2019, let's be real lol

[Ruminous]

This is almost reminiscent, to me, of some points raised in the healer strike thread.
FF XIV used to have some content catered to make use of the ranged mobility. A good examples is T7S, where a comp with two mobile dps is very useful to allow you to kite the Renauds without bleeding damage (or, god forbid, using a melee or healer for that if your team has some psychopath who's willing to do that on those roles). But then they realized you couldn't run any random comp, and stopped adding mechanics like that (A6S also had stuff you had to silence with a BRD or MCH). I'm not saying every fight needs to be that way, but one out of four wouldn't hurt.
Again, those mechanics, if added, wouldn't justify the current, awful balance. But I feel that signals encounter design problems too. Perhaps, implicitly, this is what you meant with ARR-design?

This is what I mean, plus the tools given to players back in ARR. Stuff like tricast did not exist, all the instant casts, powerful ranged skills like uncoiled fury. Designing a fight that caters to phys ranged is fairly hard to do now with the tools available to us now. It's much simpler to upgrade phys ranged design to match the design now and actually make the jobs competitive and not active detriments to the party. Plus, if you have one or two fights that cater specifically to x role, then it makes the rest unfun to play and just gives the impression you're the token role. I don't want to be useful and live to suck in every other fight. I want to be useful and competitive in general. If I end up on top of the dps, I want it to be because I had a chance to be and played my best to get it. But right now you can work hard on mch, have a perfect rotation, and still be as useful as a pictomancer who died once or twice.