My 2 cents on ranged tax

[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

[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?

[remiff]

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?

The devs are simply making the same mistake over and over again.

They made the same error in patch 7.05 when they massively buffed all melee classes while giving ridiculous buffs to ranged DPS.

Instead of slightly nerfing one job, they chose to buff everything else, further worsening the game's balance.

They did the exact same thing in patch 6.05 when Reaper was strong, and they didn't even bother to adjust the HP of the Savage bosses to reflect the changes they made, which explains the absence of DPS checks.
It's a revolving door; they're never sure of what they're doing and keep repeating the same mistakes.

Now the gap is too large again—the ideal difference should be 5% below melee, and not beyond that.