Physical range dps damage?

[Dfess]

I think range class should have same or close to the same dps damage that the close range dps has. I\\'m pretty sure the close range dps even has way higher defense than we do. So why does the physical range dps get the short end of the stick.

I agree. /10char

[Connor]

I can understand ranged having ‘rDPS’ that brings them close to what melee can do. And then because of the nature of rDPS, it’s limited by the strength of the melee/casters it’s affecting (better pDPS for the ones being supported means better rDPS for the supporter).

Surely it would be fairly unbalanced for ranged to be dealing equivalent pDPS to melee though? Unless they removed every kind of utility from the ranged I guess. But then wouldn’t they all be really boring?

Obviously in terms of numbers I’m not suggesting they should jump up all the buffs ranged have, but maybe like a 3% rise from what they’re at now? Like if a certain song that increases damage taken for nearby enemies returned? (lol).

Maybe dancer could get something to indirectly increase their damage by a very small amount, like a slight increase to fan dance proc rate or Espirit generation?

For Machinist maybe they could extend the Wildfire timer? Could help with the whole ‘pushing 1 million attacks into a 10 second window’ thing it has going for it currently too

Idk I mean I totally get that devs have to be super careful with ranged because of their history as the op meta kings, but surely it’s not fair for them to be relegated to ‘taken for the 1% stat boost and nothing else’ either? Every role/sub role should have its own value outside of just having to be there because of the way the party bonus system works

[Rasikko]

DNC has been my main job since the start of this expansion. What I like is that all the skills line up well with each other, and the pretty well choreographed animations. My like for it ends there. DNC damage is moderate at best, and this is taking Standard and Technical Step in account. Considering I can boost stronger players damage by 5%, I think if I personally did more damage, that would make DNC is a big target for nerfs, and there's people already wanting that. As a result of this state of the job, I desire there to be no major changes to the job. The small buff it got to some skills was enough and no more. DNC is also only as good as its partner is.

So this thread has gone on for some time and I think it really boils down to this:

If you could run around an arena with reckless abandon, doing SAM-like damage all the time to mobs/bosses without getting nailed by any mechanics, wouldn't that be broken as all hell?

[SaitoHikari]

I’m pretty most people in this thread are arguing for either more personal damage, or more raid DPS contribution. Not both at once, or else you get what Stormblood Bard was, where I consistently topped the damage charts as a 90+ percentile Bard and offered ridiculous utility everywhere.

Simply more raid contribution via utility skills is vastly preferable, but all signs point to the devs giving up on that for the rest of the expansion. The one class that did get a minor party utility buff paid for it by an across the board nerf to their most consistent means of damage, something that hit them much harder than whatever the hell the Summoner nerf was supposed to be about. And it was to the point where it was only a slight benefit at endgame, and a brutal unnecessary hit to their personal damage in all content before that (to the level of doing 8-10% less personal damage in Stormblood ultimate raids today compared to pre-expansion, while everyone else saw significant buffs in older content).

So yeah, it’s not really surprising that ranged mains are a bit miffed at the devs, and are defaulting to just asking for more personal damage. They justify our low contribution because of our utility, but... Exactly what utility do they actually mean, when they already took so much of it away from everyone in the first place? Troubadour/Samba/Tactician? Then what does Addle and Feint mean to the devs on the balancing chalkboard? Does free movement really matter so much that it’s somehow acceptable that a 90+ percentile Bard will still provide less raid contribution than the Monk or Summoner that dies once during the fight?

(Oh, and speaking as someone who is on E8S prog, the ‘ranged uptime’ is highly overblown. There aren’t any mechanics in 5-7S that force melee and casters to disengage for any longer than a single GCD with the correct timing. Anything that could tends to affect everyone at once, with parties adjusting positioning to cater for maximum uptime, and melee/casters have enough tools to keep uptime for longer mechanics when played properly. Only 8S might present problems, but people are shifting to double caster comps for that rather than double ranged. That tells us that the issue there is melee are in exceptional danger for that fight, while casters don’t see much difference.

People tend to forget that double or more ranged party comps were only ever a response to stacking party buffs for maximum damage. The past meta was NEVER ever in response to mechanics or boss design, so to suddenly argue that it’s okay for ranged contribution today to be that far behind because lol uptime from anywhere is highly disingenuous. If uptime mattered that much to the point where party composition revolved around it, the consistent standard nowadays wouldn’t be two melee.)

[Crushnight]

snip

Truth.

Only 1 thing in Ramuh screws melee only over the 1st stratsphere summons which force you in a corner any other disconnect effects everyone.
I+G fight, firey football and Rappy\\' s prey charges particularly the last one that is combined with numeration.
Idol, laughs, maybe going from 1 add to another and IF unlucky with colours+meteors.
Shiva though will vary widely on the order she decides to things, if she does ins 1st, whether do ilya start or others, uptime knockback mirrors etc.

Even with those problems with melee, casters laugh because they have it mapped out because when to move will always happen at the same time it's just the where to that is random.

Honestly feels like physical range is meant to be the prog role that gets sidelined as fast as possible and the only countermeasure SE thought of was make it give 1% stat gain for existing.

Until there is a fight where physical range can actually make use of their 100% mobility it is a worthless boon that is weakening the role close to irrelevancy especially if SE keeps buffing casters's mobility every expansion.

The physical range need a buff either to their utility OR their personal damage but they need more than what they do currently and no they don't have to be equal to melees but 500 less rDPS below bottom melee should be the furthest behind they should be, that way good melees will still outperform physical range on equal skill level but if the melee/caster die then they can be overtaken but that no death physical range.

Seriously when an entire role can play perfectly and still not outperform compared to a player who dies on multiple other jobs within the Dps category, Balance is not there.

[ForteNightshade]

Because we can dodge everything with no real danger involved. Melee is in constant danger of being hit, ranged isn't.

The issue is even despite these inherent weaknesses, Melee still beat the Range in fights where they are heavily disadvantaged. In fact, lets look at E6S—arguably the most unfriendly melee fight in years.

Summoner - 16,911
Black Mage - 16,575
Ninja - 16,325
Samurai - 16,214
Red Mage - 16,005
Monk - 15,950
Dragoon - 15,917
Machinist - 15,857
Dancer - 15,422
Bard - 14,970

That is the spread at 95%. Bear in mind, Monk and, especially Dragoon, have no way to mitigate disengagement. Meditation is meager compensation for a GCD loss and Piercing Talon is so laughably weak, it's actually better for a Dragoon to do absolutely nothing in most cases. So a Dragoon literally not attacking at several points does more damage than an optimized Machinist, Bard or Dancer. Bard, in particular, is so far behind in E6S, it's bordering on useless. We could somewhat justify this if utility such as Refresh, Foe's and the like still existed. Instead, Range "support" is Troubadour and friends. Are they really so much better than Feint to justify such a massive difference?

Now lets look at E7S, where Melee downtime is basically non-existent. Dragoon jumps to over 1,400 more rDPS than Dancer; 1,100 over Bard, and 800 over Machinist. Meanwhile, you'll notice the Casters have essentially zero issues regardless of the fight design. If positionals and uptime are going to be an excuse then Melee should deal the highest damage since they stand to lose the most. That isn't the case as no matter the encounter, Summoner is significantly ahead all but Samurai.

[EaMett]

snip

This!

An argument could have been made around the concept that perhaps the skill floor for the ranged physical classes was such that at lower percentiles the ranged did higher dps than other classes at lower percentiles (because while everyone is learning positionals,placements,etc the ranged can still dps). This would place the ranged physical in a "good for newer players not so good for optimized play" But that's not even really true. The only place you see this is lower percentile MCH doing roughly as well as lower percentile BLM and this has more to do with BLM doing very little damage at lower percentiles than anything else. Once BLM learns placements that's enough for mch to fall behind again.

[SaitoHikari]

-snip-

In regards to the E7S point, Bards have a huge advantage during add phase, where we can double dot 3 different enemies and maintain all for about the 2 minutes that the phase lasts, leading to drastically increased repertoire proc rates.

Even with this advantage, Bard STILL falls behind by a huge margin.

[dinnertime]

Practically every melee job has a gap-closer and True North that alleviates the "melee disadvantage" and in such generous amounts, too. Positionals in general have also been trivialized.
All the casters also have new things that trivialize their disadvantage. Summoner outright feels like a physical ranged DPS at times.
Meanwhile, Physical ranged DPS got nothing and were also nerfed. The entire role lagging out from the rest is just blatant.

[Lersayil]

Point is though, melee and caster have to work for that uptime (or have tactics built around them).

I would argue that ranged has a lower skill ceiling, and can deal with some mechanics in a way that would cause a melee to lose uptime.

I guess its arguable how much of a dps difference those things are worth though.