How about a non-support ranged dps?

[abzoluut]

It all began when 1.0 failed and 2.0 took over. They wanted to bring the classical jobs back which was amazing and pretty straightforward: marauder to war, conjurer to whm, gladiator to pld, archer to ranger etc. Wait what.. Archer to brd!?!? People who understand FF's classical jobs, understand brd was forced on archer.

They had to have a job which could mildly support the party (mp/tp/foe's). There was no room for true support. I have no idea why they did not choose healers to have these abilities (different name, different animation bla bla, same result). It's not like you'd do any kind of content without a healer. The moment you would not need one, you most likely would not need its support.

Archer should have been a true DPS: Ranger.

[Accolade]

Mabye I have missed a lot of points, but making a pure ranged DPS would be way too OP. Unless you mean like a DPS that has to stand still, like BLM without cast times?
I mean being able to move on brd/mch AND DPS while avoiding mechanics is a huge plus side the the job (Its why they made the trade-off of standing still to improve DPS). Also they have zero positional requirements so all attacks always land for full potency. All pure DPS (melee) have little nuances that make them more difficult to always attain maximum potency.

TLDR: being able to avoid all mechanics while constantly DPSing, no positionals, allowing hitting for full potency would be too OP.

maybe I just named the obvious though.

[Rowyne]

I'd be happy if they returned Bard to the way it was pre-Heavensward and let Machinist be the non-mobile turret.

[16bitBounty]

Really any of them except beastmaster. Blue mage would be first choice though

[silentwindfr]

you finding escuse for ignore the main point...

in terms of mechanic, the bard and machinist haven't the same issue than melee... make them deal as much damage is simply idiot. if you want a full dps ranged, go magic and that will not change. they will not make a physical ranged dps that will have almost no constraint deal the same damage than the melee.

Nah, about 15 ft long. Loud enough to hurt your ears across the courtyard when it cracked and when it hit. Sent chunks of wood flying 20+ ft.

15ft long? don't want to see the movement needed for get enough power inside it.

[RiceisNice]

you finding escuse for ignore the main point...

in terms of mechanic, the bard and machinist haven't the same issue than melee... make them deal as much damage is simply idiot. if you want a full dps ranged, go magic and that will not change. they will not make a physical ranged dps that will have almost no constraint deal the same damage than the melee.

No, you're not taking the whole point into consideration beyond the damage numbers. And even if it's an excuse, so what? This is an argument/debate and that's how it's supposed to be going back and forth, unless you can disprove my point.

Lesser raid buffs, no stuns, lesser armor, limited ranged space anyways. (Yes, MCH has a stun... which is also only from melee range. It might just as well be called Failed Mafia-style Execution as Suppressive Fire, going by the icon.)

Mafia-style execution for 100 potency. Seems legit. Though in seriousness, all it does is shoot fuzzy...electric mist that apparently stuns them.

Indeed. And honestly one of the ways they could tune a "non-support" ranged DPS would be for it to have less utility than the others (that kind of balancing already sort of exists for MNK, which has higher theoretical DPS but less useful utility, and NIN which has lower personal DPS but much higher utility).

Such a DPS would likely compete with BLM/SMN for party slot, which might cause concern due to the fact that a lot of fights "require" magic damage (original T4 and T11 for instance), but given that Final Fantasy has potential to add melee casters (either Red Mage or Blue Mage), there are ways to prevent it from being a problem.

The discrepancy between, say NIN and MNK isn't really wide enough to objectively take one or the other. Although at the same time, DRG is practically needed because no other job in the game provides a piercing debuff for your BRD/MCH.

They could also get away with doing a spellblade or spitfire dps, magic damage without the restrictions of cast time or in melee range. If MCH was to be the pure-dps type without the support, they could have given them an ability to change their ammo to be attributed with magic and deal magic damage in place of a caster (and change functionality of their abilities). Or they could have made MCH blunt and be able to provide blunt resistance, so a MNK can keep using bootshine for a potency increase. You've heard me say this before, there's a lot they could have done with MCH if they were aiming for it to be competing with BRD or as a ranged dps, but instead they undershot it big time.

[ChalupaBatman]

The way they could get this issue is to add a pure ranged DPS class in conjunction with a melee based on int. So you essentially trade 1 for 1.

In this scenario:
You would get to keep at least 1 magic DPS in comp.
Not sacrifice party utility, You get a BRD/MCH (or give the utility to the new melee magic DPS) 2 ranged, and 2 melee.
The only problem that I would see would be balancing this party comp against the current ones to ensure the same DPS relative to uptime.

[Iromi]

I really do not like at all how the ranged dd jobs are in this game. They can't move (wtf?) and almost are carbon copies of one another. One thing I always enjoyed about playing a ranger type job was being mobile and fast. I took bard to 60 and then never touched it again...ew.

[Rowyne]

My husband was a bard main since 2.0 release. The 3.0 bard rework not only killed the class for him, but also the game. Before Heavensward, bard could do decent DPS, support when needed, and was mobile and fluid. Now, you have to work much harder just to do decent DPS and contend with a clunky skillset that feels like it was shoehorned into the class. Yoshi-P says it was not intended for bards to feel like they're stuck in WM all the time, but that's exactly what they have to do when their best skills are gated behind it.

It makes absolutely no sense to completely change a gameplay style that has existed for two years and make it a carbon copy of a new class that's introduced to the game. They should have left bard the way it was for people that enjoyed it and made machinist the non-mobile turret. That way, people would have a choice of gameplay style. Instead, now we have people who had established a beloved main class shelving it, and some shelving the game with it.

[UBERHAXED]

My husband was a bard main since 2.0 release. The 3.0 bard rework not only killed the class for him, but also the game. Before Heavensward, bard could do decent DPS, support when needed, and was mobile and fluid. Now, you have to work much harder just to do decent DPS and contend with a clunky skillset that feels like it was shoehorned into the class. Yoshi-P says it was not intended for bards to feel like they're stuck in WM all the time, but that's exactly what they have to do when their best skills are gated behind it.

It makes absolutely no sense to completely change a gameplay style that has existed for two years and make it a carbon copy of a new class that's introduced to the game. They should have left bard the way it was for people that enjoyed it and made machinist the non-mobile turret. That way, people would have a choice of gameplay style. Instead, now we have people who had established a beloved main class shelving it, and some shelving the game with it.

Maybe it was unbalanced and so they changed it... Also you have the option of playing the lvl 50 style bard at lvl 60, all it is is extra damage anyway, but that's apparently not an issue according to you. In fact all classes have the option to not use the new skills and just use the lvl 50 gameplay style. The new skills are just for people who want to be good players do more damage.