Ranged DPS role is about to be excluded from all content

[Kitfox]

Patch 5.08 revealed buffs for NIN, SAM and QoL for SMN while not addressing any of the other dps imbalances. This is worrying because the ranged role as a whole is in trouble.

Currently, ranged jobs (MCH, BRD, DNC) are quite well balanced within their role although DNC probably needs a slight buff. But ranged role as a whole is behind in dps compared to other roles and they're in danger of being completely excluded from party setups, especially at higher levels of play and harder content. Ranged jobs simply don't do enough damage. The party bonus they bring is not enough to offset the dps imbalance between the melees and the casters and it's actually more beneficial to bring another melee class, especially now after the recent buffs, or another BLM.

Let's take BLM as the comparison point since they also have the same ranged advantage and lack a raise utility that might bring their dps down. The current raid dps comparisons between the jobs are as follows:

Source: FFlogs Raid DPS Statistic and Rankings [29-Aug-2019]
Spreadsheet

Not only is our overall dps lower, the 1% role bonus isn't even enough to offset the difference. There's no reason for this big of a difference. We don't have the Raise utility that other casters have, our only utility is on a 180 second cooldown while casters have their Addle at 90 second cooldown. So not only is our dps worse, our utilities are worse as well. Some people argue that the mobility should come with its own dps penalty but as seen above, that clearly isn't the case. Our mobility brings us no dps advantage in any of the current fights.

Someone might point out the difference in Limit Break generation with a setup that has two BLMs, but this is just an example. In the case where slower LB generation would cause a loss, the ranged job could be replaced by another melee as well. Especially after 5.08 since NIN and SAM were buffed.

Now, things are more balanced around the 50%, but that's basically saying the game is balanced around bad players. This is a problem because it makes classes imbalanced at the harder game content where you can't afford to play badly. As soon as you start playing slightly above average, the dps difference between the roles jumps so high that the role bonus can't keep up with it.

When the top end of the players start optimizing their party compositions to clear the harder content, this inevitably leads to the casual players looking up at their example and picking up the same habits and the whole ranged role will be pronounced "dead". The whole role will begin being excluded from all content, not just the hardest fights. This was already happening before the patch with the lower dps casters and melee.

Developers! Please increase ranged role dps or nerf the melee (especially MNK and DRG) and caster roles (mostly just BLM) slightly so that the difference stays within the role bonus range. The low dps isn't justified because our mobility brings us no advantage at higher levels of play and our utilities provide no advantage over the other roles. The ranged jobs need roughly a 5% dps boost to be competitive with BLM and the melees with the role bonus applied.

[Wyti]

Keep in mind non BLM casters are suffering from the same issue, or even worse since we're expected to play BLM.
The original problem is DRG was overtuned, and SE decided to buff every single melee to its level or above.

[Numenor1379]

Why only nerf BLM when MNK tops BLMs in several tiers and fights? Add in DRG not being far behind in DPS with also both it and MNK having party utility.

BLM may need a slight nerf, but only if MNK (and probably DRG) are brought down as well.

Lets also not forget SAM, while buffed a bit, has zero utility (like BLM) but is behind MNK, DRG, and now (if math is right) NIN. They REALLY need some help.

[Lambdafish]

Yoshi P says ranged are fine so they must be fine /s

[HyoMinPark]

The balance between the jobs this expansion is honestly the worst it’s ever been. While the physical ranged are balanced against each other (DNC still being a bit behind BRD/MCH), the physical ranged role as a whole needs some TLC if we aren’t to be excluded. I don’t particularly like feeling as if my static would be better off if I were a BLM or melee DPS compared to my preferred job as a DNC/BRD. I’d really like to see something done to bring all the jobs closer to one another. I know this is an easy request to make, not so easy to fulfill; but I feel obligated to make the request regardless.

[Wayfinder3]

Well i can't warm this bench myself!

~Red Mage main

[Sigiria]

As it is ranged dps will always do less damage since they don't suffer the same restrictions as other dps jobs.

Melee need to mind their position and can't afford to move as they want since they need to stick close to the target to keep their dps up.
Caster dps have casting time and have to be stationary when they don't have any instant cast to make a move so it's more planning or they lose dps.
Ranged dps can be wherever they want and be constantly on the move and not lose any dps at all. That mobility and convenience is what lower their dps.

If you're looking at a farm party where you know all the dps and caster dps will perform their job perfectly and knows the fight enough that you're sure there'll be no problem, sure having a ranged in a party will be a negligible dps loss. In other situation a ranged dps will always have an easier time pulling solid numbers, even if things go wrong or the party is still new to the fight. And that's because of the convenience of the job.

Now I'll agree that the argument had more weight when they could also replenish ressources such as mp and tp.
But if you want them to have a dps closer to what melees do, ranged will need a new trade-off to make up for it, which would be totally fine. Something like a perfect distance mechanic, where you've got to stay at a certain range of the monster to hit harder on all of your skills, something on your hud would tell you when you're at that range. And they could add a role skill that would be like true north and make it so you can bypass that for 10 seconds when you have to.

[ForteNightshade]

As noted above, Shadowbringer job balance has been a complete mess. Only the tanks were more or less solid upon release. It's been one panic buff or adjustment after another. There is really no excuse whatsoever for the Range, SMN and RDM to be this far below everyone else. A mobility or Raise tax is one thing, however that should result in 300-400 DPS at most, not over a 1,000. It's beyond ridiculous that an average Black Mage is still better than every other job not in the melee category.

[EpicOverlord85]

As noted above, Shadowbringer job balance has been a complete mess. Only the tanks were more or less solid upon release. It's been one panic buff or adjustment after another. There is really no excuse whatsoever for the Range, SMN and RDM to be this far below everyone else. A mobility or Raise tax is one thing, however that should result in 300-400 DPS at most, not over a 1,000. It's beyond ridiculous that an average Black Mage is still better than every other job not in the melee category.

The sad thing about the tanks is it’s not surprising that they’re better balanced, at least half of them play exactly the same.

[ForteNightshade]

As it is ranged dps will always do less damage since they don't suffer the same restrictions as other dps jobs.

Melee need to mind their position and can't afford to move as they want since they need to stick close to the target to keep their dps up.
Caster dps have casting time and have to be stationary when they don't have any instant cast to make a move so it's more planning or they lose dps.
Ranged dps can be wherever they want and be constantly on the move and not lose any dps at all. That mobility and convenience is what lower their dps.

If you're looking at a farm party where you know all the dps and caster dps will perform their job perfectly and knows the fight enough that you're sure there'll be no problem, sure having a ranged in a party will be a negligible dps loss. In other situation a ranged dps will always have an easier time pulling solid numbers, even if things go wrong or the party is still new to the fight. And that's because of the convenience of the job.

Now I'll agree that the argument had more weight when they could also replenish ressources such as mp and tp.
But if you want them to have a dps closer to what melees do, ranged will need a new trade-off to make up for it, which would be totally fine. Something like a perfect distance mechanic, where you've got to stay at a certain range of the monster to hit harder on all of your skills, something on your hud would tell you when you're at that range. And they could add a role skill that would be like true north and make it so you can bypass that for 10 seconds when you have to.

A 50% Black Mage is pulling better numbers than a 95% Bard, Machinist, Dancer, Red Mage and Summoner. This means a near perfect player in those respective jobs is still weaker (or on par) with an average Black Mage. At the 95 percentile, Black Mage has a staggering 1,500 rDPS lead against all five of the aforementioned jobs. What this means is by bringing one of the meta jobs, you can afford more mistakes whereas the non-meta jobs may lead to a wipe should players make the equivalent mistakes. Again, it's one thing to argue Range need a mobility tax. I agree with that. But it shouldn't be so lopsided it may actually be better to take three melee DPS even if it means one has to disengage for a couple GCDs.