Come up with ideas to fix Ranged Physical Dps please.

[Raqrie_Tohka]

TL;DRYou don't actually have to read this and there's already other threads on this but just know that Bards and Dancers are what Ninja was fresh last tier, and Mch, Rdm. And they should fix it.


I'm a Bard main. I recently got replaced by my static along with either MCH or NIN, main reason being so they could have a better chance at clearing E8S enrage.

I checked statistics on the parse website and I saw that BRD and DNC are bottom on both rdps and adps by a rather noticeable margin. MCH is also far from idea. Summoner was a bit over the top.

After some discussion, it seems most people believe Physical Ranged dps are designed to have lower dps than melee or ranged due to their "flexibility in movement", and "permanent uptime". They also have more damage contribution coming "passively" from raid than personal dps, have more HP than casters, don't have to greed dangerously into mechanics unlike melees, and have somewhat easier and more forgiving rotations.

However, people also have pointed out that in the end, ranged physical dps have to prog with melee and casters too, and in Savage if melee greed and die whole raid dies too. The flexibility in movement and easier learning phase for mechanics does not actually lessen prog time. Furthermore, raids are nowadays carefully designed to always give some kind of space to melee and casters uptime on mechanics, while some mechanics such as look-away, physical ranged dps do not actually get any extra benefit than say melee, and have to do the mechanics anyways. Supposed "aoe benefit" phases such as add phase have also been designed to not benefit ranged dps or multi-dotting (cough E6S, E8S which actually hurts OGCD mains, E7S maybe but it also benefits summoner). And while we can move during our rotations, it doesn't actually make it any easier, especially with Ping-sensitive MCH and ogcd spam BRD. DNCs is now SMNs' 2nd pet.

Thus I hope they can be changed for the better, hopefully by next patch as Ninja fix happened. Hopefully even slightly buffed a bit to "make up" for the experience of this patch. But I digress.

------------

There are many trains of thought for possible fixes, and obviously more than I can come up with alone. I hope good ideas can be made and passed on to SE, but I will attempt some examples.

There can be psychological/ quality-of-life type changes.

To make the player feel better. For instance, DNC prefers to dance MNKs because that monks equal faster gauge and slightly more personal dps. This could be changed to either be set gauge increase for any class, or to be diversified so dancers could multi-dance and change partners, even dance tanks and healers for temporary buffs, etc.

To make the player feel fairly treated. For instance, BRD songs and BV do not benefit the BRD themselves. This is just sad and despiriting. Also, the averaged apprx. 1.2% dps increase from songs also feels rather poorly designed and bland. The move of reducing dot potency while giving a tiny flat increase in sidewinder was also a lackluster move. And tiny things that add up to BRD enrages and discontent. Apex Arrow design also sticks out like a sore thumb.

MCH CD alignments this tier are a pain. For almost every fight. Apart from opener big fat burst, lots of phases are piecemeal CDs. It is unsatisfying.

In the end, with the amount of OGCD we have, you'd think it should feel more satisfying to play the class since it should feel like "happily push button for dps all-you-can-eat". But in reality it is the opposite. It's pressure. We instead feel like if we mash even a bit slower we'd be punished for our already low dps. And after mashing it all, after stats come out, it's disheartening.

There can maybe be some structural changes to raiding.

And this is not just for ranged physical dps. In raids, tanks dps and healers always compete for loot and it's never not a matter. Dps and Dps compete for loot and there is loot-funneling. Lockouts and PF loot inconsistency discourages rational and stable gearing. Still unable to gear up more than one type of class at once thus players are "locked" into one class. Lack of tanks and healers. Weekly lockouts with no leeway (such as one-week grace period to use up lockout slots in case of busy real life, or just wanting a week of break). All in all the whole raiding experience, especially PF, could be vastly improved.

(Healers also forced to dps over healing but not really relevant to this topic.)

Perhaps how raids are designed. How success and failure mechanics are calculated. How mechanics are designed for a varied raid composition. Etc.

And last but not least, the real question, how to redesign ranged physical dps philosophy so they're penalized for simply being able to move and "freeriding on free rdps"? The game shouldn't only have melee and casters, but what niche should ranged physical dps fill? That can still be balanced and simple to fit into the game? (They shouldn't be "the last person to fill up in a 8-man just for the extra 1% stat buff", or "the class bad players play because it's easy", much less "the player who doesn't need and shouldn't get gear because duh").

[Pluvia]

TL;DRYou don't actually have to read this and there's already other threads on this but just know that Bards and Dancers are what Ninja was fresh last tier, and Mch, Rdm. And they should fix it.


I'm a Bard main. I recently got replaced by my static along with either MCH or NIN, main reason being so they could have a better chance at clearing E8S enrage.

I checked statistics on the parse website and I saw that BRD and DNC are bottom on both rdps and adps by a rather noticeable margin. MCH is also far from idea. Summoner was a bit over the top.

After some discussion, it seems most people believe Physical Ranged dps are designed to have lower dps than melee or ranged due to their "flexibility in movement", and "permanent uptime". They also have more damage contribution coming "passively" from raid than personal dps, have more HP than casters, don't have to greed dangerously into mechanics unlike melees, and have somewhat easier and more forgiving rotations.

However, people also have pointed out that in the end, ranged physical dps have to prog with melee and casters too, and in Savage if melee greed and die whole raid dies too. The flexibility in movement and easier learning phase for mechanics does not actually lessen prog time. Furthermore, raids are nowadays carefully designed to always give some kind of space to melee and casters uptime on mechanics, while some mechanics such as look-away, physical ranged dps do not actually get any extra benefit than say melee, and have to do the mechanics anyways. Supposed "aoe benefit" phases such as add phase have also been designed to not benefit ranged dps or multi-dotting (cough E6S, E8S which actually hurts OGCD mains, E7S maybe but it also benefits summoner). And while we can move during our rotations, it doesn't actually make it any easier, especially with Ping-sensitive MCH and ogcd spam BRD. DNCs is now SMNs' 2nd pet.

Thus I hope they can be changed for the better, hopefully by next patch as Ninja fix happened. Hopefully even slightly buffed a bit to "make up" for the experience of this patch. But I digress.

------------

There are many trains of thought for possible fixes, and obviously more than I can come up with alone. I hope good ideas can be made and passed on to SE, but I will attempt some examples.

There can be psychological/ quality-of-life type changes.

To make the player feel better. For instance, DNC prefers to dance MNKs because that monks equal faster gauge and slightly more personal dps. This could be changed to either be set gauge increase for any class, or to be diversified so dancers could multi-dance and change partners, even dance tanks and healers for temporary buffs, etc.

To make the player feel fairly treated. For instance, BRD songs and BV do not benefit the BRD themselves. This is just sad and despiriting. Also, the averaged apprx. 1.2% dps increase from songs also feels rather poorly designed and bland. The move of reducing dot potency while giving a tiny flat increase in sidewinder was also a lackluster move. And tiny things that add up to BRD enrages and discontent. Apex Arrow design also sticks out like a sore thumb.

MCH CD alignments this tier are a pain. For almost every fight. Apart from opener big fat burst, lots of phases are piecemeal CDs. It is unsatisfying.

In the end, with the amount of OGCD we have, you'd think it should feel more satisfying to play the class since it should feel like "happily push button for dps all-you-can-eat". But in reality it is the opposite. It's pressure. We instead feel like if we mash even a bit slower we'd be punished for our already low dps. And after mashing it all, after stats come out, it's disheartening.

There can maybe be some structural changes to raiding.

And this is not just for ranged physical dps. In raids, tanks dps and healers always compete for loot and it's never not a matter. Dps and Dps compete for loot and there is loot-funneling. Lockouts and PF loot inconsistency discourages rational and stable gearing. Still unable to gear up more than one type of class at once thus players are "locked" into one class. Lack of tanks and healers. Weekly lockouts with no leeway (such as one-week grace period to use up lockout slots in case of busy real life, or just wanting a week of break). All in all the whole raiding experience, especially PF, could be vastly improved.

(Healers also forced to dps over healing but not really relevant to this topic.)

Perhaps how raids are designed. How success and failure mechanics are calculated. How mechanics are designed for a varied raid composition. Etc.

And last but not least, the real question, how to redesign ranged physical dps philosophy so they're penalized for simply being able to move and "freeriding on free rdps"? The game shouldn't only have melee and casters, but what niche should ranged physical dps fill? That can still be balanced and simple to fit into the game? (They shouldn't be "the last person to fill up in a 8-man just for the extra 1% stat buff", or "the class bad players play because it's easy", much less "the player who doesn't need and shouldn't get gear because duh").

Not to say dancer and bard don't need some buffs but your raid group is moronic to kick you for playing bard. It is very likely there is some other problem and they just don't want to look inward and replacing you is their "easy" fix playing bard will not hold the kill back specially this many weeks into the tier.

[Lastelli]

TL;DRYou don't actually have to read this and there's already other threads on this but just know that Bards and Dancers are what Ninja was fresh last tier, and Mch, Rdm. And they should fix it.

Yeah, I'm sure that's why most top groups have DNC, with some BRDs and MCHs here and there.
It's totally not because your party was underperforming.
For the hundredth time, you do want a physical ranged dps in your party to maximize damage.
They're not going to fix it, because there's nothing that needs to be fixed.

[CKNovel]

I'm really sorry for your experience and hope you'll manage to find a better group.
I allowed myself to look at your parses and your group clearly could have cleared E8S with practice or replacing the Dragoon with a Black Mage could have been a better idea if they were ready to replace.

As for the ideas:
-Give back casts at the SMN level. 40% free cast, 60% cast. Casting won't change anything as ranged don't move more than 7/8 of the time. Community won't cry about the jobs being no cast/no melee and we will have our rDPS back without anything changing. Honestly, the transition between HW and SB made me feel like nothing changed and "mobility" only impacts learning the fight and the week 1 progress proved that it had a very small impact.

-Shift the utility of the role. Currently, ranged brings nothing outside of rDPS and Tactician/Troubadour/Samba. We need powerfull tools that could help the group to survive, able to compare with SMN/RDM ressing.

-Complexify the rotation. If the ranged's rotation are the hardest, it could actually bring a balance between all 3 DPS roles. That would bring a balance between all 3 DPS roles. Melees have simple rotation but has to be melee, Caster can be ranged but have casting, ranged have "free mobility" but more complex rotation.

The problem with these ideas is that it can't be implemented before 6.0.

For the hundredth time, you do want a physical ranged dps in your party to maximize damage.
They're not going to fix it, because there's nothing that needs to be fixed.

You're not wrong, but you're not right either.
There is no needs for fixes, balance wise. "Everything can be cleared with a ranged" However, damages impacts the community's view on the role and it can be seen with PF locking double ranged out from their groups while it's the content where DPS is the least required thing.

But what is the easiest to change, the job balancing or the community's mind?

[Lastelli]

But what is the easiest to change, the job balancing or the community's mind?

Tbh I'm tired of this silly arguments perpetuated by either uninformed players or the same 2-3 people that feel bad by looking at their numbers without looking at the bigger picture.

The day phys ranged dps get close to melees and casters will be the day tactitian gets nerfed to the ground and they give us some kind of movement costraint, either in the form of cast times, positionals, optimal range or whatever. Given that changing our rotations to account for such systems is currently unfeasible, things will not change for the rest of this expansion, but if so many ranged dps want longer dps bars on their parses, they should start asking for something to work on to deserve this higher numbers. And mind you, I'm not against it.

Also yes, SMN should be nerfed, but the same can be said about BLM, otherwise we'd be just crowing BLM as the undisputed king of the game.

[Risvertasashi]

Also yes, SMN should be nerfed, but the same can be said about BLM, otherwise we'd be just crowing BLM as the undisputed king of the game.

Nah. In SB BLM had the highest theoretical DPS (but not many able to achieve it) because of its combined lack of utility and movement restrictions. SAM players got a little upset and asked for buffs but SE said no since BLM was harder to play. I think that balance was pretty fair. It's not like BLMs were dominating SB either.

[Lastelli]

Nah. In SB BLM had the highest theoretical DPS (but not many able to achieve it) because of its combined lack of utility and movement restrictions. SAM players got a little upset and asked for buffs but SE said no since BLM was harder to play. I think that balance was pretty fair. It's not like BLMs were dominating SB either.

BLM was only superior to SMN in very specific scenarios where it could minimize movement and only in full uptime encounters like final omega...after 2 series of buffs at the end of the expansion. So saying that BLM had the highest theoretical dps is misleading at best.

[Ramura_Sono]

Ranged is low risk low reward. You want to increase the reward? Introduce actual risk to the role. Giving them an optimal range window they need to be in to output maximum damage with severe fall off while outside that optimal range adds the same (though somewhat inverted) uptime consideration melee face, while still maintaining a degree of positional freedom the role has always been known for.

[Risvertasashi]

Ranged is low risk low reward. You want to increase the reward? Introduce actual risk to the role. Giving them an optimal range window they need to be in to output maximum damage with severe fall off while outside that optimal range adds the same (though somewhat inverted) uptime consideration melee face, while still maintaining a degree of positional freedom the role has always been known for.

Meanwhile, SMN gets entire phases of full instant casts and generous movement options outside of those phases, but that doesn't stop it from topping the charts...

[Ramura_Sono]

Meanwhile, SMN gets entire phases of full instant casts and generous movement options outside of those phases, but that doesn't stop it from topping the charts...

And anyone with a shred of objectivity, knows that SMN is broken and needs to be brought down a peg. If the arguement for bringing up phys ranged is "BUT SMN THO" maybe just maybe ranged are fine and it's smn that's the issue.

As far as bringing back bow/gun mage. I've got bad news for you. A sizable portion of people playing phys ranged play them nearly exclusively for their freedom of movement. The disdain for HW bowmage was tremendous and bringing it back will see these forums explode with posts asking to have it removed again.