Ranged DPS role is about to be excluded from all content

[HyoMinPark]

They should consider lock contents with one melee one caster one range and one free slot to get a loot any party lack in the role wont have any drop...

That’s as lazy a fix as just buffing the party main stat bonus, and ignores the main problem with the physical ranged (and SMN/RDM). It wouldn’t solve the issue of the physical ranged being underpowered compared to some of the other jobs, which would mean it’s a bandaid fix at the absolute best.

[ForteNightshade]

They should consider lock contents with one melee one caster one range and one free slot to get a loot any party lack in the role wont have any drop...

This is the equivalent of your parents forcing you to take your little sister/brother with you when you were planning to go the movies with your friends. You don't want the Range/SMN/RDM but Mommy SE is making you take them. It's both lazy and bad design. "We can't be bothered to actually balance the jobs. So we'll force them into parties." And what does this do for SMN and RDM who are getting absolutely demolished by BLM?

What's particularly irksome is how simple the fix is. Increase RDM/SMN/BRD/MCH potencies by roughly 800 or so while giving DNC something in the 1,000 range. Bam, you just made all five of them balanced without changing a thing. They literally just did this with Ninja.

[Akiudo]

I’m starting to get a little confused now.

If they buff ranged DPS, and it ended up at like 500 dps, then what’s the point of bringing a Summoner/Red Mage over them? Even Samurai and Dragoon could be in danger if the ranged DPS role gets too close. But then, if they get any less of a DPS increase, would it even move their position in the rankings?

ranged dps in the context talked about does indeed include Red Mage and Summoner, bard/mch/dancer in particular would be referred to as physical ranged in that case, sometimes that gets taken somewhat out of context because people act like being mobile should automatically cost you 1000 dps at the top end before anything else. also its not about moving the position in the ranking, it's about not having such an gigantic dps falloff after 5th place.

If we assume that an ideal ranking is something like: Black Mage, Samurai, Dragoon, Ninja, Summoner, Bard, Machinist, Red Mage and Dancer, then how would they buff the ranged DPS without them moving up from where they should be? If the ranged DPS are higher than any other job in a different role (e.g Red Mage), isn’t that a pretty big blow to said job?

why should we work under this assumption ? like i get what you mean, black mage only has personal dps, same with sam (mch is the same btw) but thats not what people complain about, FFLOGS since 4 weeks or so ago actually tracks your actual raid contribution, so not just your personal dps but how much dps you did-the dps you only did because others buffed you+the dps you buffed others for so theres no real reason why "pure dps" need to be at the very top off raid contribution. Before that it meant if a blackmage was 300 dps above a bard but the bard buffed the group for 600 dps the bard factually offered 300 dps more than the blackmage, when fflogs now says blackmage is x dps higher then y job such things are allready included.

It stands to reason that Summoner and Red Mage will also receive damage buffs, so the amount they’re contributing would go up at the same time as ranged DPS, meaning that while there wouldn’t be a chance of ranged overtaking they, we’d still be in the exact same position but with slightly higher DPS. Isn’t that a really roundabout way of nerfing Black Mage and Monk? I mean, if we really want things to be balanced without changing any aspects of the game itself, wouldn’t nerfing them (maybe Dragoon too?) mean balance is immediately restored without them having to lift a finger to adjust other classes?

it's not "maybe dragoon", even samurai outdps every ranged by a bigger margin than monks have on samurais and ninja are even above that. So its either nerf top 5 or bring bottom 5 up, and one of these would feel suckier and has a much higher chance of fucking statics over so theres that.

I imagine that if ranged just got a flat potency boost, it wouldn’t really mean anything because Summoner and Red Mage are getting them too. In 4.0 most raid groups would gladly push out a caster if they had to choose between that or a ranged for Refresh etc, which isn’t unacceptable. But now they’re competing purely on a personal DPS basis, which means that the only way they can be really balanced is by all having the exact same DPS. Even if say, Summoner was 200 DPS above every other job in the category, wouldn’t that technically make everything below it useful? I mean, when we talk about ‘dps’ we mean rDPS, and I can’t imagine Battle Voice gives more DPS than Devotion consider they have the same cooldown. Embolden I hear is really weak so that wouldn’t make Red Mage worth taking over Summoner. Machinist doesn’t have anything for rDPS, and Dancer must always be at the bottom of the DPS anyway because of its damage buffs.

the point is that the discreptancy has gotten so big at least some are considering things like double blm two melee, or tripple melee and use some cheese strats, like who cares if one melee loses 500 dps because of mechanics not designed for them if they start at 1500 above the ranged they replace. Also, and that cant be stressed enough, they are NOT competing on a personal dps basis, they are competing on a raid dps basis, you don't need to imagine how much better or worse battle voice is than devotion or whatever, FFLOGS flat out tells it to you

And I mean, my own wishes aside they couldn’t increase the utility for ranged DPS for the exact same reason (would create an imbalance). So it doesn’t sound like this works as a valid way to balance the role between others anymore. I know the whole post is just going to seen as my way and it makes to try and justify turning ranged into some abhorrent mutant support role, and it’s a fair assumption to make based on my post history I guess lol. But for once, I’m not trying to suggest that utility is ‘the’ way to adjust this, because realistically it’s the exact opposite way of adjusting the balance, at least from the majority of what I’ve seen

"utility" is a nice word, but encounter design pushes dps as king, but even so why do you think it would necessarely create an unbalance ? lets say smn does 400 dps more than (buffed) brd/mch/dnc/rdm and loses the rezz, redmage can rezz, bard can give mana again, mch gets 2 nice dmg reduce cooldowns, dnc whatever i'm out of ideas. this would be way harder to balance than simply damage (and actually be a lot more subjective) which is why i'm personally against it, but at least than there would be choices/tradeoffs. as it stands everyone basically has the same utility so of course at that point you can only balance with damage

If only a small gap exists between these jobs, then there is a balance there, but then we still have the ‘ultimate’ jobs with DPS shooting up the top. If only a small gap exists between these jobs and ones like Black Mage, doesn’t that create a whole other kind of imbalanced ‘meta’? Why take Black Mage if you only do 200 DPS less as a Bard/Machinist for 10% of the effort?

because that line is bullshit, blackmage is not 10 times harder than any of the physical ranged, it isn't even twice as hard or whatever, if it where physical ranged would reign supreme at lower percentiles (hint: while there is some upwind even at 10% percentiles, so REALY FREAKING BAD they absolutely don't do so), see my post two posts above yours why people massively overstate difficulty of their own classes, things like positionals aren't nearly as bad as people make it out to be, and if theres only on blackmage (don't see why double blackmage should be encouraged) than its not that hard for a group to make it so that one does not have to move too much/blackmages aren' nearly as immobile as some people act.

I guess what I’m saying is, how could the ranged DPS role get personal DPS buffs without either invalidating other jobs or the buffs being too small to make an actual difference? Surely the most realistic option to create balance in this context in a way the devs can actually do is lower the potencies of the top jobs and not buff the lower ones? Would buffs to ranged personal DPS really solve anything besides making it harder to balance jobs between each other at the lower end?
[/QUOT] to the relative value of a blackmage (as you used that class as your example of "has to work a lot harder than say physical ranged) it makes literally zero difference if he is bought down 500/1000 dps or if everyone in the bottom 5 is buffed for the same amount, at this point it simply boils down to "buff 5 classes" or "nerf 5 other classes"

Like, what would buffs to the ranged DPS role look like to resolve this issue? Potency buffs? Adjusting Battle Voice / Tactician / Steps for rDPS gains? Adjusting the strength of job unique abilities (e.g Queen Automaton, Apex Arrow, Fourfold Feather)?

all of those/any combination of those. like i'm pretty sure most bards don't care if they get buffed by 900-1000 dps or get back foe's and the 2% passive crit on their songs, the factual dps gap right now is simply to wide is the problem

[Connor]

snip

I see my mistake then, since normally when I see ranged I think of ranged physical rather than both them and casters together. And I definitely agree that mobility doesn’t act as much of an advantage for the ranged physical jobs anymore, so that doesn’t work as a justification for their low DPS.

In terms of the utility part, I’ve said ‘imbalance’, but I more just mean a situation like 4.0 where a ranged was kind of required for stuff like Refresh (it definitely wasn’t impossible if you didn’t haven’t one, but it was very valuable). I can get why the developers don’t want to have this kind of the thing happen again. At the same time, you’re right that those kinds of utility can exist and not create that kind of situation, though the difficulties that come with balancing those kinds of abilities make it difficult to implement.

I think difficulty is ultimately a matter of perception. Bard feels extremely easy to me because I’ve been playing it since 2.0, and I feel the same way with Scholar. I guess, from the perception of someone who mostly plays Black Mage, it might feel they have to put in way more effort to do well as a Bard or Scholar than Black Mage if they didn’t play them often. So, it doesn’t seem like the whole ‘ranged are easier’ thing works as justification for lower damage.

That just leaves me wondering though, why did the developers have ranged so low on damage in the first place? I mean, there’s at least an argument about Red Mages being able to spam Raise, but there’s already plenty of other threads on why that isn’t really a fair ‘tax’.

But for Bard/Machinist/Dancer/Summoner, I wonder why they thought it would be ok for there to be such a big gap between them and the ‘top’ jobs when mobility doesn’t grant them a significant advantage, difficulty in execution is largely relative for any job, and raid utility doesn’t act to close the gap. Then again, it seems a common trend in discussing changes to any role that the main question is ‘what exactly were the developers thinking?’. It’s definitely there amongst most healer discussion too, I can’t say I know much about tanks so won’t try and speak for what’s going on in discussions going on in that role.

In terms of what kind of adjustments the role would get, i more meant ‘what do you think is most likely’ than ‘what would you like to see?’ Not that I disagree, I think most players in the ranged DPS are more concerned with the gap being closed than what they do to close it, which I can totally get.

Like, some I can think of from the top of my head would be increasing the maximum potency of Apex Arrow, which would help close the gap and not require making any adjustments to how the Bard plays currently. Dancer might get buffs to the potency of Cascade / Fountain, since they’re the most used abilities as the ‘filler’ abilities, which should give it quite a good DPS boost if they’re boosted high enough (possibly Reverse Cascade / Fountainfall buffs too).

I feel like, when they do make adjustments to jobs in the ranged role, the main concern will be to close the gap without making any adjustments to the playstyle. Not that I think there’s anything wrong with that, since it’s the most straightforward way to adjust the jobs whilst not upsetting the players that like the job how it is currently (DPS gap aside).

[Cetonis]

In terms of what kind of adjustments the role would get, i more meant ‘what do you think is most likely’ than ‘what would you like to see?’ Not that I disagree, I think most players in the ranged DPS are more concerned with the gap being closed than what they do to close it, which I can totally get.

I think for Dancer this is mostly true, as their gameplay is in a pretty good spot outside of Improv right now.

Machinists would like to see something done about their ping problem. But if SE is going to be a stubborn mule on that front, then yeah the details of what is done to get the numbers up probably don't matter so long as they don't screw up gameplay priorities.

For Bard, it would truly be a shame if they just i.e. increased Burst Shot potency and called it a day, since as per threads like this, the fact that Bard has some room to be buffed could be leveraged to great effect in addressing a number of flavor, depth and QoL concerns.

[Miralyth]

If they buff ranged DPS, and it ended up at like 500 dps, then what’s the point of bringing a Summoner/Red Mage over them? Even Samurai and Dragoon could be in danger if the ranged DPS role gets too close.

I posted this in another thread, so I'm sharing it in response to this (I edited out some writing to shorten the read slightly):

... The panic people have that no one would bring anything but ranged if their DPS were too close is a myth. The meta will still be the jobs with the best dps for the situation, and people will still follow the meta. Not to mention the loss of role buffs and LB. ...

... [regarding Stormblood] Bard and, in a few cases, Machinist weren't so strong because they had mobility, it was because they had decent damage, strong buffs, refresh (which casters didn't have) and synergized way too well with dragoon. BRD+MCH was not a meta for the full expansion, SMN & BLM overtook MCH once they had higher rDPS and not even because it was significantly higher (in the case of SMN). If casters had refresh and strong buffs and synergized with some job that gave them 10% damage, it would have been casters instead of aiming jobs.

It had nothing to do with mobility and everything to do with buff synergy and utility.

I didn't write this at the time of my quote, but note how MCH and BRD never overtook the melee. They did more DPS than NIN, for example, but NIN's utility and the synergy it brought with trick attack was too valuable.

Also, your bit about Bard is not something I agree with. I'm too tired to go on about it, but I think it's more difficult than Samurai and arguably Dragoon (I say this since you seem to be comparing them to melee). It's a job designed to force you to look at procs and timers constantly and consider where your GCD is in relation to server ticks + procs and bloodletter/empyreal arrow CD, but you're judging it on the merit of combos and positionals. That just doesn't add up to me. I also feel loathe to have to say this, but no, Bard is not my main. After it lost its Stormblood complexity I lost interest in it. Additionally, I think difficulty is an absurd reason to balance jobs around and that this doesn't matter to begin with. I think people should play easier or more difficult jobs if that's what they like, and not because they expect some kind of reward.

[ForteNightshade]

Ultimately, a mobility tax of say 400 DPS or thereabouts is fine. That largely accounts for uptime loss if groups aren't willing to adjust strategies. 1,500+ though is absolutely insane, and frankly suggests the dev team paid very little attention to just how extremely lopsided things were. It honestly feels like they spent the majority of their time looking at each individual role. Although, I say that and then look to the Casters and wonder if maybe there was just something in the water that day...

[Kitfox]

In case someone was as curious as I was to how the role bonus interacts with job strength, I made this little calculator that uses simplified dps distributions and custom inputs to play around with different weights for acceptable tax. It's easy to give a ballpark number of how much the role bonus contributes to raid dps but a bit harder to say much that is in percentage of rdps of a single player.

Role tax calculator

With role bonus set to 1% (or maybe a little higher to account for buff multiplication effects) and taxation set to ~90% of role bonus amount results in roughly 5-6% acceptable dps loss to stay within striking distance of the top dps jobs. So if a BLM is doing 100% dps then a ranged should do around 94-95% of that amount. Anything beyond 7-8% loss puts ranged at the risk of being totally replaced. Currently with ranged jobs being ~10% behind the high hitters means that ranged tax is closer to 150-170% of the role bonus amount.

There's an argument that can be made for 100% tax based on the fact that role bonus also gives bonus VIT and therefore HP, so breaking even would still grant an advantage. The tax could also be increased a little bit to account for rdps losses other classes would suffer when doing mechanics more suitable for ranged players, but mechanics like these are very few and far between and honestly quite negligible if it only costs a couple of gcds for the player. Not to mention if those losses can be turned into tank or healer uptime losses they become a lot milder than losses dps roles would suffer. I don't think a tax higher than 105% of role bonus can be justified because we're simply not pressured enough with ranged mobility mechanics.

Over 10% rdps loss for simply being a mobile class is not justifiable. Ranged classes pretty much need a flat 5% buff across the board.

[Morbot]

Hi comunity! Really nice thread i think all the opinions are really well founded and pretending to have the only mmo whit very good balances. Imo theyre close to that. Im not a veteran player, really new btw. Im playing RDM right now and im really enjoiyng it. I dont know if the idea was to make him kinda a support job, I have read that, but i think the idea as the way it is right now, its the one, that mix ranged/melee its atractive to me. I cant compare by myself about damage yet, but its really fun to play, maybe needs more damage but i disagree about making him support type. I think that job maybe would be for healer classes. When you start touching jobs like that, there is no return. You will be continously touching all, and that would be the end like a lot of mmo’s for doing that. I dont like when they start buffing and nerfing. Its a way end.

[Connor]

Snip

I think you might be misunderstanding what’s meant by ‘support’. When people mention any kind of role in ffxiv, I find it’s much easier to understand what it is if you add “and DPS” to the end. Tank (and DPS). Healer (and DPS).

In the context of ffxiv, ‘support’ refers to a damage dealer that has a bit more utility than others. Even the most ‘support’ oriented jobs will always have DPS at the core of the job design, because ‘support’ as an actual role does not and will not exist in ffxiv.

So when people say they’d like more ‘support’ for Red Mage (which generally I’ve seen people say the opposite e.g remove healing spells from rdm), they don’t mean for it become any less damage oriented than it is now. Just that the ‘utility’ section of it, the abilities that help out the party, could be better considering where it is I’m terms of how much party damage it brings. It’s likely that Red Mage will receive personal damage buffs anyway, so the melee/ranged aspect of the job will either remain untouched or become even stronger.

Lastly, I can understand why you’d think support is a healer responsibility, but it simply isn’t anymore. Most healers actually have very few actual ‘support’ abilities; the vast majority of their toolkit is designed around direct healing / healing over time, shields and dealing damage to the enemy. Buffing and debuffing isn’t a thing healers in ffxiv really do anymore. Astrologian is designed around ‘buffing’, but it’s not a full time responsibility for the job like dealing damage / healing is. Any support abilities healers ever have or will have must be off the cooldown and instant use, because actual ‘buff’ abilities can’t work because of ffxiv’s game design, especially not on healers because their DPS contribution is so high that the support abilities would have to be crazy strong to justify spending your GCDs buffing the party instead of just dealing damage.

No job in ffxiv will ever be a ‘support’ job, because that role doesn’t exist in any form in ffxiv.

And naturally, because of these limitations, every job has to be fairly limited on what ‘support’ it brings, and no job in ffxiv will ever focus solely on buffing or debuffing. Not without reworks to all content that’s ever existed in the game, which naturally is too much work for them to ever even consider (I’d even go as far as to say we’d have to give up an entire expansion amd maybe more for them to ever make support jobs work in this game).

So basically, even though you have crazies like me trying to find some way to get a support-like job in ffxiv, the majority of players are aware that no job in the game current should ever become a ‘support class’ instead of a ‘damage dealer with some support’. Which I think adequately describes a traditional Red Mage, if you think of its versatility as being what allows it to ‘provide support’