My 2 cents on ranged tax

[Maxilor]

Im just gonna share this from xivdiscussion

Im well aware of party composition slots and that damage =/= complexity but come the fuck on now, VPR is egregious.

I feel this so deep in my soul.

The 'Difficulty Tax' is such bullshit now.

That Bonobo that can play Minecraft could probably play VPR decently with the right setup.

And yet it tops the charts.

[Lyth]

I think the real Ranged tax is on Physical Ranged jobs, not 25 APM casters like PCT that provide superior utility and mobility tools. Double magical ranged was the standard on early clears in this tier. If you force melee downtime, PCT comes on top, not MCH.

You will see that difference become even more pronounced in fights where there are intermission phases, and PCT will absolutely dominate under those burst-orientated conditions without significant changes to how motifs work. I think VPR will be an underwhelming choice in FRU.

I wish that there was a metric specifically for capturing the peak (maximum) burst values as a comparison point, perhaps averaged across all bursts. aDPS is inadequate in characterizing this.

[Akonyl]

If they're so dead-set on a steep physrange tax, I really wish they'd just start making physrange mechanics again (baits, etc). So many mechanics nowadays are full-party mechs that are essentially symmetric no matter who you are, which kinda kills part of why people used to bring physrange to some older fights.

I know SE doesn't wanna make physrange required, but adding physrange mechs really wouldn't. Just make them require enough movement that it'd be suboptimal for a caster to do it, and there you go.

[Supersnow845]

If they're so dead-set on a steep physrange tax, I really wish they'd just start making physrange mechanics again (baits, etc). So many mechanics nowadays are full-party mechs that are essentially symmetric no matter who you are, which kinda kills part of why people used to bring physrange to some older fights.

I know SE doesn't wanna make physrange required, but adding physrange mechs really wouldn't. Just make them require enough movement that it'd be suboptimal for a caster to do it, and there you go.

The one good thing the travesty of a fight that is T7 did perfectly is make a mechanic for the phys ranged and do it perfectly

[Ayan_Calvesse]

Yeah, the purpose of the tax is to offset the fact that when bosses move the melee can't melee and that's it. So on a striking dummy the melee should absolutely be beating the pys. ranged, but in any actual fight proper balance would put everyone at the same dps. SE never seemed to understand that fact, sadly.

Aye I keep trying to reposition Valigardmanda but it doesn't seem to work..

[Raikai]

I don't agree that DNC should be penalized for being easy... Viper defeats that argument by far, because by that logic it should be bottom of the 'upper tier of damage'. Plus, DNC does have quite a notable skill ceiling now in DT where you need to align those Standard Steps / FMs to a tee and avoid Flourish drifts at all costs, not even speaking about the chaotic esprit management we have now.

I feel - as it is - the only way to 'fix' the phys ranged situation is finding a way to move the 2min meta big buff only to them as the providers while also finding a workaround on having 2 phys ranged on that matter. The other job actions like Divination and Brotherhood could be reworked into something else tied to their kits.

[remiff]

I disagree with the idea that so-called "easy" jobs should perform less effectively than slightly more difficult ones.

In fact, there aren't really any "difficult" jobs left in FF14 anymore.

The current issue is simply a serious balance problem.
The issue is that they buffed all the melee jobs significantly, even though they already had a considerable advantage over physical ranged DPS and magical DPS with a resurrection ability.
Meanwhile, they gave extremely weak buffs to all the ranged/magical DPS except for Black Mage, which has widened the DPS gap even more.

The Machinist, in particular, has been in a strange position since Endwalker.
The fact that it doesn't have any damage buffs should place it with the lower melee, and the DPS gap between melee and ranged should never exceed 5%.

Here, the gap is really far too significant—we're talking about an average difference of 3000 DPS between the best job and the lowest one, even when played by skilled players.
This is completely unjustifiable.

The DPS difference is 10-13% for the best job and the lowest one

[gumas]

what annoyed me as ranged class is the "free movement" is kinda bullshit now considering many boss now has mechanic/aoe attack that require you to be close with everyone like circle aoe around boss where you need to get close to the boss, or boss about to blow you away so you (again) need to get close to the boss or boss has going to do aoe attack that literally cover the whole left side of screen so you need to (AGAIN) stay close to the boss so you can move if the boss do it (if you are far away, you might have no time to move because the cast time is pretty short)

so yeah, free movement on range class is kinda bullshit for me since many instance you are basically still in close proximity with the boss, i say about the same range as healer range which is just tad further away from melee

there is nothing ranged about as range class, we dont shoot from edge of arena to avoid aoe or anything, we cant, we have to stay close with the boss, so whats the point of range

[Valence]

The fact that it doesn't have any damage buffs should place it with the lower melee, and the DPS gap between melee and ranged should never exceed 5%.

Here, the gap is really far too significant—we're talking about an average difference of 3000 DPS between the best job and the lowest one, even when played by skilled players.
This is completely unjustifiable.

The DPS difference is 10-13% for the best job and the lowest one

It's been the exact same issue at ShB and EW releases. I rechecked rdps history again to make sure I'm not speaking out of biased memories:

- 5.0 Eden's gate, the gap between ranged (not BLM/SMN) and melees is 10% (12% for BRD).
- 5.1 Eden's gate, the gap is reduced slightly to 8% (still over 10% for BRD).

- 6.0 Asphodelos, the gap (not BLM) was 8.5% (and 13% for MCH...).
- 6.1 Asphodelos, the gap is reduced to 5% (and 8% for MCH...).

It tends to normalize down to 5% ish in latter tiers each time which makes me think they'll also reduce the gap this time once more at least for 7.1. The real question is why does this keep even happening every time?

[Payadopa]

As a melee person I find ranged easy in comparison. No positionals, you just walk around. Mages at least have a cast bar.