Ranged DPS, choose a weakness that would justify a buff

[Lastelli]

at least your bard idea would in fact make bard way less mobile than even blackmage (if going for optimized damage), while at the same time forcing bard so far away it will basically never again see an aoe heal, yes you put up the whole "just quick ideas" disclaimer, but reading about the one class i actively do play i get the feeling your experience on bard boils down to "i like mch"

I have a pretty decent understanding about how brd works, though I don't normally play it as I find it way too dull, especially in the current iteration. Not that MCH is much harder, but at least the slightly higher APM keeps me more entertained.

Anyway, again, you guys should really stop the hyperbolic statements, it doesn't make your argument more convincing.
As I already said, 10y is a relatively small range (the diameter of art of war). At 10-15y you will still receive most AoE heals. If your WHM needs to use cure 3, stack with the party, get healed and move away again. You'd lose a ridiculously small amount of damage by doing so, as you would simply have a slightly lower proc rate for repertoire skills. Actually, depending on luck, it might even make no difference at all when you're forced close to the boss. A similar consideration is valid for foe requiem: you'd have to give up a few seconds of debuff if you're forced to move, which would amount to a very small amount of damage. Consider that currently trick attack provides around 1.5k rdps. Requiem was weaker than that, so that would amount to less than 500 rdps. Even if you were forced to move for a few seconds during foe requiem, you'd lose like 100-200 rdps at most.

Now, if you tell me that you don't like a gameplay that forces you not to move to squeeze that extra 500 dps I can understand that. Just don't tell me that these changes would make ranged dps less mobile than BLM. I can't really take you seriously if you do.
I was also thinking about giving ranged jobs some positional requirements instead of restricting their movements, but thinking about how that would work out in a savage setting, I honesly think that that would be either too easy (with rear/sides positionals only) or too hard (if a front positional is included) because of how fights are designed.

To be honest, I'm just starting to believe that some ranged dps were simply too comfortable with the op status they enjoyed in the past (especially BRD) and can't accept their new position as normal jobs. Thankfully, most ranged dps are perfectly fine with the current situation.