How about a non-support ranged dps?

[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...

[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.

[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.

[Shurrikhan]

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.

If Ranger/Sniper/Marksman, ammo types would be another, though perhaps gimmicky, workaround.

[Alahra]

If Ranger/Sniper/Marksman, ammo types would be another, though perhaps gimmicky, workaround.

True. That's honestly what I thought they were going to do with MCH for awhile, until we got more information about how turrets were going to work. I thought they were going to be a full DPS for the caster slot (and even pondered if they might have been INT-based "engineers" instead of marksmen). But I'm a dork and like to ponder different wonky possibilities.

[RiceisNice]

True. That's honestly what I thought they were going to do with MCH for awhile, until we got more information about how turrets were going to work. I thought they were going to be a full DPS for the caster slot (and even pondered if they might have been INT-based "engineers" instead of marksmen). But I'm a dork and like to ponder different wonky possibilities.

To be fair though, I think it's a better alternative to make them compete with BRD, because otherwise you're looking at 3 melee, 3 casters, 1 ranged competing for 2/1/1 slots respectively. Unless they homogenize BRD into a full dps without the regen, and do away with the ranged/caster role to consolidate it all into one "Ranged" dps role. If they go with the latter though, they'd need to bake in the missing regen into the healers and physical dps so that it's entirely on the burden on the individual players to manage their resources, or at least not make it a requirement for progression.

I mean taking an example, WoW healers aren't running out of mana because they don't have regen, it's because the fight is taking too long (on the DPS) and/or the tank is requiring too many heals (which can be partly be because they're not durable enough from a mitigation perspective, something that FFXIV doesn't make a point of with the vit/str setup)

[Alahra]

To be fair though, I think it's a better alternative to make them compete with BRD, because otherwise you're looking at 3 melee, 3 casters, 1 ranged competing for 2/1/1 slots respectively.

Sure, given the current class spread I'd agree that MCH is a better fit for BRD's current role. I think there is room in the future for a ranged DPS that's physical in the current caster slot, though.

[Shurrikhan]

True. That's honestly what I thought they were going to do with MCH for awhile, until we got more information about how turrets were going to work. I thought they were going to be a full DPS for the caster slot (and even pondered if they might have been INT-based "engineers" instead of marksmen). But I'm a dork and like to ponder different wonky possibilities.

I thought they'd be INT/DEX, using a sort of Scavenge resource that could be used to build turrets, augment ammo, or upgrade their weapons, and that Gauss Barrel would be either a simple rifle-grip style or a battlefield component that accelerates, redirects, or splits shots passing through it... Then disillusionment set it.

Still a damn fun job though, as far as I've gotten to see (lvl 55 atm, and many a lvl 60 dummy MCH dps video drooled over).

That sad, its current state kind of feels like a half-ass mix of an actual Machinist and a Marksman, which is fine except that it somewhat prevents purer variants of each from being worth developing.

Sure, given the current class spread I'd agree that MCH is a better fit for BRD's current role. I think there is room in the future for a ranged DPS that's physical in the current caster slot, though.

I'd just really like to get away from the Ranged = Support paradigm, honestly. Sure, bring a (longevity, rather than offensive) Support for every progression / serious 8-man, but I just don't see why it would have to be Ranged, or that in turn each Ranged would have to be that. It works, but I hope it won't carry any further.

[Alahra]

Still a damn fun job though, as far as I've gotten to see (lvl 55 atm, and many a lvl 60 dummy MCH dps video drooled over).

I want to love it, but the "rhythm" of their ability usage feels too disparate from that of the other classes for me to play it at all. It's somewhere in between the standard GCD classes and the casters, and I just can't acclimate to it. Outside of the crafting mess at the start of HW, MCH was probably the thing I was most disappointed in on a personal level.

I'm crossing my fingers that they completely revamp both WM and GB in 4.0, as I think they're ultimately both detrimental to the game in the long run.

[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.