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

[Sylvain]

By removing the movement tax entirely from the game, as it serves no purpose whatsoever but to piss off players of jobs that weren't arbitrarily decided to be subject to it.

The most logical thing is to just have a not so wide range on "movement capability".
Basically, every caster should be roughly doing the same amount of cast and have the same mobility.
In the same way melee, most (except dragoon still for some reason) have some tool to get out of melee for some period of time, and range don't have any cast bar and thus are free.

The issue with the "movement tax" on RDM/SMN is that they simply don't cast enough, and this is mostly true for SMN.
Samurai currently cast 4.5 times per minute which makes it more of a caster than SMN. This is simply how ridiculous the situation is.

RDM overall is fine. I feel like it needs some moment of "more cast" a bit like the alternative palette. (but now that would just be copying that aspect) but like... you're still casting often enough.
SMN however... like something needs to be done. A melee shouldn't have more cast than a caster.

[Carighan]

Yeah casters really ought to be standing still with a cast bar most of the time (on the most mobile caster). And all of the time on the least mobile one. Period. And equivalent setups for melee but those have to be done a lot more through the design of the encounters.

[Valence]

Numbers largely don't matter unless the tier's chronically overtuned, see Abyssos as an example of this.

"But I shouldn't be doing-"

My job fantasy of being a Phys Ranged isn't Big Numbers, it's flexing on the Black Mage players by being able to move at will, and flexing on the Melee players by having 100% uptime, without demanding specific positioning or strats that favour me. It's deliberately choosing the flex role during almost every mechanic, and doing so while also putting out a decent amount of damage AND contributing to the party's survivability.

My job isn't to enable some bleeding-edge speed kills, but to make the lives of my party members easier by virtue of existing. Maybe my role's redundant if you're all turbogamers, sure? But 999 times out of a thousand, you're not surviving that mechanic without Samba, and you're not clearing that mechanic without a flex that isn't terminally addicted to the "Gotta get one more GCD in" mentality.

How is this flexing? They all have full uptime already if played properly. If anything, I feel guilty to have that freedom of movement because I know that it's always going to come back at me one way or another that my role is "for babies".

There has been no flex roles for ages in savage mechanics anymore. Mechanics best done by rphys go back to SB or ShB at best, and the last one I do remember was in O11S for Pantokrator and Blaster PLD cover (one of the best savage fights of all times due to the amount of things parties could do to solve mechanics). If we're playing in the contemporary times, that's stone age XIV at this point. The cold reality is that rphys occupies the R1 position all the time and does the same mechanics than R2 caster does but mirrored. If you mean that you can flex on melee slots when you have 2 casters, then surprise, casters can do it too, and in fact RDM would rather do it than you. And PCT/BLM as well to be honest because a melee slot will always require less traveling distance than a ranged slot and strats generally make room for melees and not ranged. Flexing slots isn't something special nor unique to rphys at all, it's something that any ranged job can do, because mechanics are agnostic beyond the melee/ranged consideration.

I'd agree that our job is to support the party, but as it currently stands, this is heavy copium to think that any party actually needs any of our mitigation tools more than anything. Of course you're surviving that mechanic without samba, Samba just gives a better margin at best and becomes irrelevant past the first clear. There is just too many mitigators in the game currently for ours to still matter, and the only thing that actually still kinda brings a difference is Waltz, which is something only DNC can boast having and which has also been crept upon by silly jobs like SMN that can party heal even more and with less positioning constraints. Rphys jobs are just lesser casters nowadays and only justified by the party role bonus.

I too never picked rphys for the pure damage output, and once in a while, it actually used to bring other things to the table (and ironically while still able to compete on damage when paired with a drg), but it's a relic of the past and has been since SHB, which EW consolidated upon, and DT confirmed once more.

By removing the movement tax entirely from the game, as it serves no purpose whatsoever but to piss off players of jobs that weren't arbitrarily decided to be subject to it.

Note that the movement tax always conveniently forgets that rphys, with the exception of dancer, has the shittiest mobility of all jobs alongside with scholar and astrologian. Full uptime, definitely, and it's a huge boon. But mobility is garbage (and I'm not asking to get more of it). Good luck competing with a Smudge PCT or an AM spamming BLM when it comes to readjusting or execution, if it's tight, it's tight, that's it.

[PercibelTheren]

My job fantasy of being a Phys Ranged isn't Big Numbers, it's flexing on the Black Mage players by being able to move at will, and flexing on the Melee players by having 100% uptime, without demanding specific positioning or strats that favour me. It's deliberately choosing the flex role during almost every mechanic, and doing so while also putting out a decent amount of damage AND contributing to the party's survivability.

Black Mage basically has the same mobility as you, if not better. It can stack a massive amount of instacasts, it can teleport both to an ally and to Leylines. Melee uptime strats are the standard and have been for ages, they're not "demanding" anything. There's no tradeoff to doing a melee uptime strat in the vast majority of time. Not sure how rPhys is a flex role, either? You are R1, you are doing the exact same movement as the caster. The mitigation and healing is nice to have but you're not the only one who can bring that. RDM has Magick Barrier while also bringing chain-rez. Summoner has party-wide healing. RPhys is not special.

My job isn't to enable some bleeding-edge speed kills, but to make the lives of my party members easier by virtue of existing. Maybe my role's redundant if you're all turbogamers, sure? But 999 times out of a thousand, you're not surviving that mechanic without Samba, and you're not clearing that mechanic without a flex that isn't terminally addicted to the "Gotta get one more GCD in" mentality.

If you're not surviving that mechanic without Samba, the other DPS aren't pressing their mitigations and the healers are asleep at the wheel, unless we're talking week 1 clears.

[Sylvain]

RPhys is not special..

Well they get an AoE mit +1 extra fluff, an extra reprisal for mch, mantra for bard and a small AoE heal+shield for danser. Ironically dancer feels like it has the weakest support.

[Valence]

Well they get an AoE mit +1 extra fluff, an extra reprisal for mch, mantra for bard and a small AoE heal+shield for danser. Ironically dancer feels like it has the weakest support.

Uhh.. Hello? Curing Waltz?

[Sylvain]

Uhh.. Hello? Curing Waltz?

Yeah... I personally find it to be quite underwhelming. But maybe I never had any good dancer with me I dunno (that could be the reason).
I much prefer MCH's extra mitigation.

[CKNovel]

Curing Waltz is 300 potency that can be doubled without suffering any limitations, it's worth even if you restore your own HP as phys ranged are frail.
Improvised Finish is 5% shield but shields are simply that strong due to the negative return on the mitigations calculations.

After you pass the 50% mark of mitigation, Improved finish is straight-up better, but it's quite difficult to reach that 50%.

[PercibelTheren]

Curing Waltz is 300 potency that can be doubled without suffering any limitations, it's worth even if you restore your own HP as phys ranged are frail.
Improvised Finish is 5% shield but shields are simply that strong due to the negative return on the mitigations calculations.

After you pass the 50% mark of mitigation, Improved finish is straight-up better, but it's quite difficult to reach that 50%.

Curing Waltz is indeed nice in a pinch but that's about it. I can never get the party to stack up for it and if I'm having to use it, it usually means the healers are dead and we'll die anyway.

Improvisation is straight up basically never usable unless you want the tiny regen. When do you have time to channel it in the vast majority of fights?

[Valence]

Yeah... I personally find it to be quite underwhelming. But maybe I never had any good dancer with me I dunno (that could be the reason).
I much prefer MCH's extra mitigation.

Waltz blows Minne and Dismantle out of the water, no question from my side and it's the only support tool I actually appreciate on rphys. The bread and butter tactician/troubadour/samba is decent and appreciated at least the first week, but the rest is mediocre. Waltz on the other end is a free Cure III on the party or part of it every MINUTE.