Concerns Regarding DPS Balance: Physical Ranged, Red Mage, and Summoner

[Valence]

I’ve noticed that physical ranged jobs, as well as Red Mage and Summoner, seem to have significantly lower DPS compared to other jobs in the current raid tier. While many players are saying it’s not an issue because all jobs can comfortably clear this content, I’m concerned about what might happen in future raid tiers where the DPS checks could be much stricter.

Right now, the lower DPS requirement makes the gap between these jobs and others feel negligible, which is why they’re still commonly accepted in Party Finder groups. However, what if the DPS check in the next tier is significantly higher? If the difference in DPS becomes more pronounced, are we going to see players start excluding these jobs from Party Finder simply because they aren’t able to keep up?

I understand that raid composition isn’t everything and that player skill can make a big difference, but I worry that a higher DPS check could make this a bigger issue. Do you think this is something that needs to be addressed by the devs in terms of balance, or am I overthinking it?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!

It's been the case since HW/SB, but before ShB the meta profile was different and whether you attributed the damage gap to DRG or BRD/MCH was a matter of semantics due to their synergies, although a damage gap/tax was definitely there (HW BRD/MCH did 10% less damage without a DRG in party and then 5% in SB). Since SHB they kept the damage tax baked into BRD/MCH (and new DNC) while adjusting the party role bonus to give the whole party a 1% main stat (including VIT) increase provided one of those jobs was there, essentially turning rphys into a glorified 1% party bonus bot with not much utility beyond since support, mitigation and healing also got changed to not require support from them.

However, the role party bonus trick does work, provided those jobs don't go beyond 10-15% gap, which they are dangerously close to do at every expansion launch since ShB with no exception, some with more dire situations than others (BRD in ShB, MCH in EW, MCH in DT...). So people often discuss how shit this feels, but objectively the system works in keepign the jobs "relevant" in any party for most of the time.

When it comes to RDM, it's a special case that has always been lagging behind its counterparts (BLM/SMN), but often a bit ahead of rphys, since its inception in SB and this was justified by Square pointing at its raise utility profile and healing ability (conveniently forgetting that pre EW SMN also had a raise and some healing, even if less on demand, and never suffered from any damage tax). EW SMN changes made the devs drag it down to be on RDM's level and rphys level, which clearly hints at them also balancing jobs around uptime as a single metric more than anything, but using raising as a convenient excuse when it doesn't match (RDM).

The real issue contrary to rphys however is that caster DPS are not damage balanced within their own role, and jobs directly compete against each other within their role since there is no party damage bonus trick within that frame of reference. Before DT, BLM benefitted from being essentially considered for melee slots (since any ranged job can technically also function as a melee), but now that there is another like it (PCT), it is starting to stretch the problem to unhealthy levels since you can perfectly take 2 casters, one in a ranged slot and one in a melee slot, and get away with it. Perhaps this isn't a problem as long as melees stay competitive with those though (which isnt the case with PCT right now and it's going to get absolutely worse in FRU... probably).

So it's not that much a problem of effective balance so much that a "feelsbad" balance kind of problem, that has been drawing a lot of hostility and divisions between players of each role whether theirs justifies more damage than the others or not, because after all, the material balance is preserved with that party bonus trick otherwise.

Regarding physical ranged, the additional mitigation is significant and the decrease to hitboxes / increase in movement requirements mean the physical ranged fantasy is alive once more. Playing with a talented physical ranged - or even two! - will make for the most comfortable prog you will ever have. The numbers are the only thing these jobs fail at.

As a rphys main about to retire and reading this, I don't think we've been playing the same game...

[Ramiee]

Phys range is significantly worse than Casters, the kills with double caster is so much better than caster and Phys.
Really the benefits of Phys range is to just bring a dancer to buff viper and have it do even more absurd damage. You don't bring Phys range for their damage at all.

[PercibelTheren]

Red Mage and Summoner are already the two best jobs in the game owing to their raises, and in the case of Red that is the primary job fantasy.

I'm sorry, what? The primary job fantasy of RDM is "you only play this during prog because once you don't need the raise, there is zero reason to ever pick this job over literally any other caster"?

Hitboxes are more reasonable again but melee still don't experience any significant amount of downtime in the vast majority of fights while physranged still arbitrarily deal a lot less damage. Saying damage numbers are "the only thing these jobs fail at" is really disingenuous because this game is all about damage numbers. More damage means easier fights because you get to skip mechanics and clear content faster. Unless they fundamentally rework encounters so that this is no longer the case, damage will always and forever be the main thing to consider.

[PercibelTheren]

I have played RDM few days a go.. as a black mage main RDM doesn't feel like caster.. it is sub caster and sub Phy range.. thus is also the case for summoner.

Being caster is having cast for most of its rotation
Sadly this isn't the case for red mage and Summoner and I believe this is the reason why they are this weak.. developer don't want to anger true casters by this low cast time jobs

I think there should be more cast time for red mage and Summoner with less movement overall

Increase cast time and increase damage

Red Mage quite literally hardcasts every other spell. That's the main job gimmick. Funnily enough, it's also the least mobile caster now because of how many mobility tools and instacasts BLM has been given over the years.

[PercibelTheren]

It's never been my experience that jobs are purposefully left out. People that omit certain jobs are dumb.

I agree that it's dumb but it absolutely happens. MCH was locked out of PF in Endwalker for months until it got potency buffs.

[Connor]

If you ask me the real problem is that they gaslit players into thinking phys ranged are ‘support’, then gradually gave every other job in the game the exact same capabilities with absolutely nothing in return for phys ranged. Then they have to try and compete with SMN/RDM raise on top of that! It’s no wonder people considering just dropping the role completely.
Thing is, when you take away the bland-ass 120second raid buffs, it becomes apparent ranged actually really sucks lol. Curing Waltz is probably the best of the bunch since it’s used for non-healer meme runs so can actually produce some decent healing (mostly because there’s so little to heal lol). Minne I guess is good for if you want to make a Scholar meme shield lol, but even if your healer is healing 100,000 HP in one cast, they’re only getting about 15,000HP extra from Minne. Yet Lux Solaris is on the exact same cool-down and heals the entire party for around 20,000 HP lol.

Dismantle is good for Machinist but like what are they lol? Is phys ranged a support role, and if so why is MCH very clearly not a supporter? If it’s a pure dps then why have you (devs lol) been gaslighting us saying phys ranged is a support dps role? Pick a goddamn lane for the poor job!

[Loggos]

Red Mage and Summoner are already the two best jobs in the game owing to their raises, and in the case of Red that is the primary job fantasy.

Tbh isn't the job fantasy more about balancing black and white magic and switching back and forth between casting and melee gameplay?

PvP tackles this idea very well with the ability to change between black magic and white magic mode on the fly, making the gameplay and the decisions when to switch quite strategic.

I know this doesn't work in PvE but I think it's still sad if red mage's job fantasy was reduced to res bot as well. I know this is already the game play reality but at least in terms of fantasy I'd like something more.

Perhaps red mage could have something akin to astro's old sects, either a "white magic dominant" or "black magic dominant" mode and you have to pick one before entering a duty.
"Dominant" would mean that the class still uses both white and black magic in their rotation (and still has to balance them in their regular casts) but skews more towards one or the other, granting some skills different properties or locking the job out of others.

So if you enter in "black magic dominant" mode your res would be disabled (and perhaps your heal would be replaced with another non-target/self-target cast to proc dual cast when you can't target the boss) but your damage would be increased and/or you'd gain certain aggressive/weakening debuffs (like frazzle instead of magick barrier in pvp), or a dot etc.

If you enter in "white magic dominant" mode you have your res (and your heal if it's removed in black magic mode) but your damage is lower (and perhaps some skills have more defensive/strengthening buffs/properties).

This is just a rough idea of course and current rdm would need some rework/tweaking but like this you could still keep the "res bot" gameplay for prog while also allowing players to elevate it above a "prog job" and and put more weight on the "caster-melee" duellist dps fantasy for end game clears.

[BabyYoda]

the solution for red mage and summoner is to make them a support jobs..
they can give mitigations and damage buffs + rez..

this is the only solution while keeping their rezz other than that you can dream of having higher damage than melees

[Sensui]

the solution for red mage and summoner is to make them a support jobs..
they can give mitigations and damage buffs + rez..

this is the only solution while keeping their rezz other than that you can dream of having higher damage than melees

RDM "should" have been a support caster. Where the White magic was Buffy things, party shields, regen or light heals, etc.. I don't know what the job is supposed to be but it's never been fun to play to me..

SMN if they're gonna gimp it's damage, agree.. the summons should do a party buff as well. But they need to make the abities be cast AT WILL.. being stuck as a rotation is completely lame and I'll never understand how they can excuse the ifrit "gap closer" as anything other than making it a detriment to use. I've watched more SMN accidentally kill themselves with it than using it to much effect dodging..

I agree that tagging Phys Rng as support then taking it away from MCH is a weird decision. The problem in HW was they were basically the same job as BRD so I think they're trying to make it different.

Mch should be the greedy dps heavy job of the 3. Since I guess they're trying to make it that. But it's not there. If they want to make it a support job, it should have access to more debuffs and shields or something to make it different from the other 2. Why don't we have any debuff jobs....

I just feel like the job design team are really uninspired. Really curious how the conversations go between them and the encounter team.

[BabyYoda]

RDM "should" have been a support caster. Where the White magic was Buffy things, party shields, regen or light heals, etc.. I don't know what the job is supposed to be but it's never been fun to play to me..

SMN if they're gonna gimp it's damage, agree.. the summons should do a party buff as well. But they need to make the abities be cast AT WILL.. being stuck as a rotation is completely lame and I'll never understand how they can excuse the ifrit "gap closer" as anything other than making it a detriment to use. I've watched more SMN accidentally kill themselves with it than using it to much effect dodging..

I agree that tagging Phys Rng as support then taking it away from MCH is a weird decision. The problem in HW was they were basically the same job as BRD so I think they're trying to make it different.

Mch should be the greedy dps heavy job of the 3. Since I guess they're trying to make it that. But it's not there. If they want to make it a support job, it should have access to more debuffs and shields or something to make it different from the other 2. Why don't we have any debuff jobs....

I just feel like the job design team are really uninspired. Really curious how the conversations go between them and the encounter team.

devs problem is they are listening 2 group of people: High end raiders who cares about how efficient jobs need to be.. and newbies who just get stressed so often and need to make jobs easier.

people in the middle suffering from current situation.. jobs feel like they have no purpose.. tanks heal party.. supports do damage higher than selfish DPS.. 2min meta is killing non burst jobs.. playing healer for more than 2 hours a week will reduce your IQ by 12..

I have listed a suggestions in many posts of how to give purpose for each role but Idk if devs are listening or they are busy with their NFT project that have peak 20 players each month..