Meleewalker to Meleetrail

[GoatOfWar]

At this point they should just do what most old MMOs do with the whole DPS job situation. Do not give a care about the aspect of them be Melee, Range, and Mages. Just make them all do BIG damage and do not let the whole Mobility aspect of a job affect them.

If players want the enjoyment of big DPS with melee range encounters then let it them just play Melee DPS, if they want Mage Experience with cast time to do BIG DPS then let them be mages, and if they want to do big DPS equal to Melee and Mages without the risk of Melee and Mage's cast time then let them play Physical Range DPS.

This is how it mostly was in older MMOs and why Gun Jobs (or any mobile DPS jobs sometimes) in those that introduce them tend to be absurdly overpowered and it is just mostly player choosing melee, mages, or range as a preference.

So then Physrange becomes the best and then people complain about that instead.

[Ruminous]

So then Physrange becomes the best and then people complain about that instead.

One: people will always find something to complain about. That's how people are.

Two: phys ranged wont suddenly 'become the best' if they're allowed to be competitive with the melee and casters. Mechanics that define the job will say who is best and who is not, and if yours doesn't align with the situation, then you're not the best. Right now, even if the boss favors a phys ranged job's mechanics, it's still the inferior choice because simply existing as a phys ranged means you do less damage because of an antiquated system that hasn't been updated to the current era.

Third: Why should playing that role punish the player for that choice? To know that your best effort is a half-assed effort of someone else? Because you've talked about maximizing samurai, would it be fun to do that and know that some floor tanking dragoon did more than you because they could manage to push buttons? Doesn't make for a fun time when your effort isn't rewarded. For the phys ranged, it really isn't right now. We want to be competitive and useful, not relegated to token role or completely cut out because our only worthwhile contribution to the raid is a groupwide damage reduction. Like sure, fantastic, but even a caster gets one that works specifically for magic damage, which a majority of the killer attacks are magic based.

[Galvuu]

Two: phys ranged wont suddenly 'become the best' if they're allowed to be competitive with the melee and casters. Mechanics that define the job will say who is best and who is not, and if yours doesn't align with the situation, then you're not the best. Right now, even if the boss favors a phys ranged job's mechanics, it's still the inferior choice because simply existing as a phys ranged means you do less damage because of an antiquated system that hasn't been updated to the current era.

What do you even mean by "the mechanics that define the job"? Just in terms of pure dps, no matter how people want to paint this, physical ranged are immune to almost any interference. Or, perhaps better put, if anything interferes with a physical ranged job's dps output, that mechanic will interfere with casters and melee just as much. Likely, it will interfere more.
It's obvious the balance is whack right now and both casters and physical ranged need a damage boost, but this trend of pretending we play in some vacuum where simultaneously having free mobility and range doesn't help in the slightest is just disingenuous. Especially with our current NM raids, floors 2 and 3 pose seriously uptime challenges to melees and casters alike.
For better or worse, in the history of FFXIV, there has never been a time where the best comps don't have at least one physical ranged job and one melee job. Even double caster or triple melee have physical ranged presence. This is true right now, and the 3rd, 4th and 5th jobs with highest clear rates are physical ranged (well, one is SMN, but SMN is a physical ranged job in a caster disguise). This whole talk of "might as well replace the physical ranged with another melee/caster" is dishonest, and detracts from actual problems, be it the poor state of balance- which I'm not discounting- or gameplay issues (BRD having sync issues that can be fixed by something as simple as adding a damned Apex Arrow charge is inexcusable imho).

(Also, your first point isn't exactly constructive- this whole thread could be labelled as such, but that does nothing to address the actual current problems)

[EdwinLi]

So then Physrange becomes the best and then people complain about that instead.

Sorry for late reply....

Anyways, Physical Range are not always the best in older MMO since they do design skills to provide more ways for Casters and Melee classes to maintain DPS despite having their limitations. This way they are still on equal terms with mobile DPS type classes.

Normally a Melee Class will get more engagement skills which allows them to rush back into melee range to maintain the "always in the enemy's face" encounters and defensive skills to allow them to stay in melee range for a short time and tank any heavy melee range AoE attacks so they can continue to stay in melee range. Viper actually has a example of this stay in melee range skill as one of their PvP skills but normally it should still allow them to continue to attack with their basic skills while still reducing damage for a short time. The high damage attack is the basic counter attack thing. Similar to Samruai with the Tengentsu but normally it would be a Anti-Heavy damage skill so Samurai can stay in Melee range to maintain DPS combos. Some reason they treat these skills more as Light Damage resist skills in FF14 rather than the usual temporary Heavy damage resist skills.

Mages are normally provided ways to protect themselves during casting so they can tank a heavy attack without needing to move or cancel casting their more heavy damage but high casting cost skills or turret stance. They already got the instant cast skill that is normally provided for some mobility.

Managing when to use these skills is the part players need to be self aware about and not treat them as DPS skills but skills to maintain their DPS engagements.

A lot of choices with boss design that SE made being focus on dodging AoE obviously did not go as planned when they added the Vulnerability debuff effect on most Boss AoE skills which is the situation we have now. If they add more Anti Melee and caster AoE focus bosses then melee and caster will complain they favor Physical Range more because they can dodge attacks while still attacking easily and if there is not enough Anti-Melee and Caster attacks on Bosses to put enough downtime for Melee and Casters to perform less DPS, people will keep saying Physical range are not needed because it is still easy to maintain High DPS in boss fight.

Also, people will always find a reason to say the development team "favors" one playstyle over another since individual perspective varies about a lot of things including when it comes to specific Job roles.