How about a non-support ranged dps?

[silentwindfr]

The AoE class. I mean, honestly, you give a job a whip and make it centered on itself or its weapon characteristics, rather than on a pet, and what else is it going to be? You walk in, whip in hand, and proceed to auto-attack 4 enemies at a time. "Hi. I'm AoE."

I believe it was called Flayer in the 1.x localization notes though.

even if whip can hurt, they are not the most efficient weapon for kill.... exept if you use a weird type of whip that are often unrealistic...

a whip will be used for cripples or restrain more than kill people.... then make it a weapon for a pet class seems legit.

[RiceisNice]

I assumed in your theoretical (as I stated) that we went back to no reduced lb charge, as that's the only way the theoretical even makes sense. Healer damage is less than tank damage, and really only takes off when you have actual magic DPS in the party. So really it comes down to is the extra up time on trick attack worth the loss of the strength buff, and the the extra 5% more damage from your scholar? Reduced limit break charge makes it all moot, however.

I meant it in the scope of the game if all classes are equal. You're also only looking at it from a complete damage perspective and not in regards to an actual encounter. Running with all melee (not just NIN) will cramp you boss to deal with mechanics that hit players in an AoE, reducing uptime on dps.

You don't want to stack the current ranged jobs either, BRD and MCH lacks a piercing debuff from DRG's disembowel, casters won't have a BRD for foe or regen for the healers.

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.

That's sort of the thing, they're little nuances that wouldn't amount to much to a capable player. Melee dps is very well capable of maintaining full uptime and hitting their positionals through the fight mechanics. Heck, even during 2.5, a BRD undeniably has full uptime on dps, and they are still behind that of a melee/caster dps by good amount. And well, right now you already gave them WM/GB and the damage discrepancy is still there despite not having full uptime.

[silentwindfr]

That's sort of the thing, they're little nuances that wouldn't amount to much to a capable player. Melee dps is very well capable of maintaining full uptime and hitting their positionals through the fight mechanics. Heck, even during 2.5, a BRD undeniably has full uptime on dps, and they are still behind that of a melee/caster dps by good amount. And well, right now you already gave them WM/GB and the damage discrepancy is still there despite not having full uptime.

ok let's explain simpler, since you refuse to understand....
bard and machinist, don't recquire position nor to stay at melee range for attack.... they have range and can attack from wherever they want. if they was dealing the same dps than melee, why bring melee? i means why bring one? it will be simpler to go full Range for reduce the accident chance of sweeps or aoe missed by a melee...

[Shurrikhan]

even if whip can hurt, they are not the most efficient weapon for kill.... exept if you use a weird type of whip that are often unrealistic...

a whip will be used for cripples or restrain more than kill people.... then make it a weapon for a pet class seems legit.

Went to a HEMA meeting where someone had brought an authentic "war whip" (?), and then casually blew through a 60-lb pile of lumber with it. Not too unrealistic in that regard.

[silentwindfr]

Went to a HEMA meeting where someone had brought an authentic "war whip" (?), and then casually blew through a 60-lb pile of lumber with it. Not too unrealistic in that regard.

are you sure it wasn't a flail weapon? that not the same type and weapon...

[RiceisNice]

ok let's explain simpler, since you refuse to understand....
bard and machinist, don't recquire position nor to stay at melee range for attack.... they have range and can attack from wherever they want. if they was dealing the same dps than melee, why bring melee? i means why bring one? it will be simpler to go full Range for reduce the accident chance of sweeps or aoe missed by a melee...

Because if you're not bringing a melee, you don't have a DRG, whom provides a crit buff for the entire party member and disembowel that buffs MCH/BRD dps. If you don't have a DRK, you're also losing out on a int debuff from MNK which does wonders for incoming damage mitigation during fights. You're also not going to get a STR buff for your tanks for that extra damage and enmity generation. And if you went all range, you're going to need some of them to stand in melee range anyway to avoid spacing issues, negating their advantage of taking from a distance while losing out on the aforementioned advantages from melee.

[Shurrikhan]

are you sure it wasn't a flail weapon? that not the same type and weapon...

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.

Edit: was merely bringing that up as a irl example of a whip that is an effective weapon. This particular one could only really be used for a linear (forward) strikes, rather than horizontal cleaves, but could kill an armored knight when striking to the head, and break right through pauldrons, and could rip arms literally off, while striking across 7 ft or so at a time. Unleashing a class that could do anything like that would be... terrifying, to say the least.

[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.

[Shurrikhan]

ok let's explain simpler, since you refuse to understand....
bard and machinist, don't recquire position nor to stay at melee range for attack.... they have range and can attack from wherever they want. if they was dealing the same dps than melee, why bring melee? i means why bring one? it will be simpler to go full Range for reduce the accident chance of sweeps or aoe missed by a melee...

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.)

Note: there was a time when ranged typically out-dpsed melee in dummy fights, and we still brought melee.

[Alahra]

Utility is important stuff

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.