Quote Originally Posted by ShadowNyx3 View Post
Are you actually saying that a melee losing 1 of 2 spots that they only have because of an arbitrary community mindset is a problem? I mean, I guess that might shrink the pool of availability if more groups started backing away from this two melee obsession and those melee players wanted to stick with melee, but guess what, that's not a problem. The flex role is just what it says it is, it can be anything a group wants it to be and as long as 1 spot exists for each role then there is no problem that warrants certain roles wanting to make others weaker just so their role can have two guaranteed slots. A "meta" comp might suggest you take a certain role all the time for the flex position but the meta is just that and not a requirement.

But that's not really why you're here is it? You are a ranged dps player who is terrified, justly so, of becoming obsolete. Since we know that's what you really want to try and solve, why are you quoting me and skipping over the part where I mention how your role has been completely stripped of all of its value with Stormblood? Instead of focusing energy on bringing the other two roles down to make the ranged role better, can you try to contribute to the effort to add utility and value back to the ranged role that makes it have more value than just a 1% buff? Due to the nature of the ranged tax, there's no chance that the range role will ever be close to the damage contributions of the other two roles, but that doesn't mean that ranged can't once again have incredible value in the form of their utility. Who knows, they might actually have that right now without anyone here realizing it yet. If you've played as far back as Alexander: Gordias, you'd remember that crowd control abilities were required for Living Liquid's add phase. That's nothing compared to MP and TP resource management but it is a possibility of unique, role-specific utility.
like i said myself, IF melees should have a second slot saved for them is another discussion entirely, but just to humor you, personally i don't give a rats ass if melees got a second spot as long as they get one at all, all i said was that this indeed is the status quo, community made or not and therefore melees as they are have a right to give input on it even if i will wholeheartly agree with you that the notion there simply HAVE to be 2 melee spots reserved is a terrible one, on the other point though, the utility for ranges i will for simplicitys sake quote myself from another thread

Quote Originally Posted by Akiudo View Post
while i'm not completly opposed to the idea [of giving more utility to the physical ranged] the whm/ast situation back when whm simply lacked the damage while astro was a weaker (but still strong enough) healer allready showed that no amount of extra defense (with things like palisade and dismantle) will overcome damage, you cant make it so whatever defensive support (or mana managment help) they could offer was absolutely mandatory or people would complain about fights being impossible without say dismantle, on the other hand if you make it so they fall in the range of usefull but technically not necessary people will just find ways to manage without it, they did when astro was the "barely strong enough" heal , and they factually do right now to a lesser extent because for all the "melee uptime strats are hard on the group" no one, literally no one takes 4 ranges and go's "oh yea, now that we don't have to care which dps stands in front our raid runs sooooo much better" , dps is king, and allways will be. also more dps means a shorter fight, a shorter fight means less chances to mess up, even mechanics you don't need to handle if the dps is good enough.

theres also the point about ranged being "easier" and i really wonder how people define that, like yes free movement and all, but what i mean by that is this, ranged dps are easier to do WHAT exactly ? deal damage ? because you will have a harder time dealing any certain dps treshold on a physical ranged compared to the other classes, you will have an easier time doing 10k-11k-15k on literally any class than a physical ranged. yes, doing your rotation correctly without getting oneshot for staying to close to the boss is easier, but what is the payoff ? if even on the most movement heavy fight the physical ranged still completly fall short of everyone else than WHAT is the use of free movement ? heck, what even do people think "free" movement means ? because as it stands smn is nearly as mobile as the physical ranged, back in stormblood i mained redmage and let me tell you even back than it did not feel restricted, i played mch for a time in heavensward, so with gauß barrel, you know my reaction to removing gauß barrel ? "oh yea, great... whatever..." blackmage i cant say, but in general people VASTLY overestimate restrictions they got on their class, yes it is nice not having to think about my position relative to the boss or whatever, but its functionally useless if even after this the dps just falls short.