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

[Corwin_Sunchaser]

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.

This.

MCH is bottom of second class DPS…
Amazing for a low utility selfish dps!

[Ramiee]

The dev team is... Strange.
I feel like they never really got over how overpowered they made Bard in ARR, so from ARR onwards they just decided to make all Phys ranged weak DPS. It's just another case of them not understanding MMOs.

Most of the time in MMOs classes where you are ranged and can instant cast don't have an incredible damage tax for it instead they contain management that makes them have a difficultly comparative to casting or melee uptime.
It's just laziness, figuring out a way to balance Phys range to do good damage but not be so easy that their overpowered is completely possible. It's part of the reason I still appreciate HW despite all it's job design problems, they were still trying. Now it's just have a damage list.

Melee/BLM > Ranged > tank > healer.
Anyone who breaks these rules gets nerfed.

[Connor]

I still appreciate HW despite all it's job design problems, they were still trying. Now it's just have a damage list.

Melee/BLM > Ranged > tank > healer.
Anyone who breaks these rules gets nerfed.

I unironically liked HW’s caster Bard. Was it an undeniable mess of lazy implementation? Absolutely lol. Do I think they still could’ve salvaged it if they just put a bit of effort in? I’d like to think so lol. Not that there was anything wrong with Stormblood’s Bard, but I personally didn’t like all of Bard’s songs being turned into ogcd abilities with cool downs and left the job by the end of the expansion. Heavensward jobs feel like they came from some entirely different design team to what we have now lol.

Now though it’s like they can’t even be bothered giving physical ranged a general identity lol. Are they DPS? Sure but not as good as literally anyone else lol. Can they support? Sure, but so can literally anyone else lol.
And, I feel like the ‘raid buffs’ barely count as ‘party support’ anymore, since it’s not like anyone actually thinks about them except when the 120s window appears lol. I mean, the entire combat system is designed around you not using any raid buffs outside of the same 120s window every else has.

So now they can’t be good dps, can’t really be good supporters, and generally share a lot more equivalents with each other than any other role. Like, imagine if they give every melee a skill that’s literally the exact same thing for them all but with a different skin? People would be apoplectic lol. But that’s totally acceptable design for physical ranged?

Edit: Justice for Troubadour, Shield Samba and Tactician, they don’t deserve to be a literal role skill disguised as a real one lol

[Rithy255]

I think the gap should exist but be way more closer.

Not a fan of a job like black mage (for this example BLM should be way higher then it currently is anyway lol) dealing the same damage as a machinist, but the current gap I believe in Physical ranged being much much closer in terms of numbers, I'd really want physical ranged to be only like 2-3% behind though even if that.

Maybe a unpopular opinion here taking the "middle ground" but I think theirs some truth to be said when jobs are much harder in positioning and everything they do compared to a job who has very good movement ect. I feel like we would be running triple physical ranged if they did the same damage as melee/caster (without the 1% buff also being a factor)

[ZaqueXIII]

I wouldn't compromise mobility for a damage increase in phys range or ranged in general.

The bigger issue with adding cast times is that it reduces the amount of weaving potential. I worry that the PVP design has had the wrong effect on some people in this thread. The presence of walking casts works in PVP since it provides moments for melees to close the gap before being blown up from range and there are fewer weaving opportunities since most jobs usually have 1-2 abilities that are designed to either CC or Burst down other players. Not to mention standardized statistics allow for a much more fine tuned balancing including the trade offs of something like that.


In PVE even if we only add the walking casts to the BRD/MCH filler skills we still get a situation where the already strict rotations of both those jobs get even more strict than necessary. As in addition to their weave heavy burst windows both jobs are very much loaded down with spamable frequent OGCDs. Again, its an excellent mechanic in PVP but that is a product of how much more balanced PVP is, while still allowing for unique job fantasy moments.

More critically I think it is telling that players are willing to make unecessary sacrifices that would be to their detriment simply to close a gap that shouldn't be as exagerated as it is. It should be something that is fixed by just a few potency buffs across the board and/or providing more options for existing abilities to provide additional damage for performing well in your job, like how sidewinder used to do additional damage based on if you had your dots up or not.

[Ruminous]

Maybe a unpopular opinion here taking the "middle ground" but I think theirs some truth to be said when jobs are much harder in positioning and everything they do compared to a job who has very good movement ect. I feel like we would be running triple physical ranged if they did the same damage as melee/caster (without the 1% buff also being a factor)

You run whatever dps is highest in race situations. Look at world of warcraft. If melee roles are higher, you'll stack those. If casters are higher, those get stacked. It's a moot point to say "you'll only bring ranged" if the ranged phys suddenly become competitive, especially now when plenty of uptime tools exist for every job. But what we got right now isn't working and is dragging down not just class design but fight design as a whole.

[Corwin_Sunchaser]

If there was not a % buff to have a physical ranged in the group, most groups would not have one considering the DPS loss.
Magical ranged would however still be there, either for their higher DPS or raise.

[NightHour]

I think the gap should exist but be way more closer.

Not a fan of a job like black mage (for this example BLM should be way higher then it currently is anyway lol) dealing the same damage as a machinist, but the current gap I believe in Physical ranged being much much closer in terms of numbers, I'd really want physical ranged to be only like 2-3% behind though even if that.

Maybe a unpopular opinion here taking the "middle ground" but I think theirs some truth to be said when jobs are much harder in positioning and everything they do compared to a job who has very good movement ect. I feel like we would be running triple physical ranged if they did the same damage as melee/caster (without the 1% buff also being a factor)

Dancer and Bard are 20-26% behind melee.

Red Mage is almost 13% ahead of Dancer while having as much utility, free instant casts and a raise.


It's not like Physical Ranged bring any unique raid support or anything either.

Technical Finish and Radiant Finale are no different in functionality to Brotherhood or Mug for example.



Machinist brings nothing but damage and is beat by RDM and SMN, classes with raise.



The difference should be 5-10% max between Melee and Ranged... not 20-26%.



This is what I think WoW does well in the balancing department, they don't unnecessarily tax ranged dps.

A good ranged player can beat a unskilled melee, in this game the unskilled melee beats the skilled ranged player by default for the most part.



At the most Ranged should deal 5-10% less damage than a melee/BLM not 20-26%.




And for all the melee players saying "Oh but not taxing ranged would make no one play melee" - No it wouldn't, Melee jobs are super fun to play, no ones ever gonna ditch playing Viper or Reaper for example to play Dancer or Bard.


Physical Ranged are taxed way too heavily and the discreprancy needs to be reduced.

20-26% less damage is unacceptable.


If 5% didn't exist, these jobs would probably die out.

[Ramiee]

I unironically liked HW’s caster Bard. Was it an undeniable mess of lazy implementation? Absolutely lol. Do I think they still could’ve salvaged it if they just put a bit of effort in? I’d like to think so lol. Not that there was anything wrong with Stormblood’s Bard, but I personally didn’t like all of Bard’s songs being turned into ogcd abilities with cool downs and left the job by the end of the expansion. Heavensward jobs feel like they came from some entirely different design team to what we have now lol.

Yeah I liked it too. I think the main reason people hate on it is because machinist also had a casting mode too so you couldn't escape it. It was like cleric stance on healers, if you didn't use it you were basically sandbagging. I would of liked if HW bard was expanded too.
It was rough mostly because Phys range in general was rough in HW but honestly I think it was easier than current bard.
The song rotation stuff is so incredibly punishing if you die and you do so much work for your damage and have an insane amount of apm during burst yet do no damage. Honestly I have no idea how bard wasn't completely reworked after EW.
I hate radiant finale so much.

[Galvuu]

You run whatever dps is highest in race situations.

Funny enough, this is a ShB and 2-min meta problem.
Historically, in XIV, a lot of world firsts before had some really unusual job choices, both in terms of execution, mitigation and even damage.
From UCoB Lucretia's "I picked DRK because I like it even though it's worse" to Sfia's BLM world first when it wasn't particularly good and so on.
Somehow, the 2-min homogenized job design paired with the more cookie-cuter EW fight design has made balance worse, even at the highest level (P8S week 1 is still a meme as bad as Gordias Savage).
I actually think the job and encounter design problems are mostly independent- they just compound on each other to make everything worse (see: what I mentioned above). The team is just doing a bad job in general.

(Strictly speaking, difficulty in execution and mitigation tools matter a lot in world first, even if dps is a strong consideration)