Ranged DPS jobs - disappointing?

[bernkz]

Hey all, recently came from WOW and played many other MMOs. Love FF14! However, 2 weeks into the game and I realised that all ranged DPS jobs kinda suck and are at the bottom of almost all DPS lists. Which is very sad since I love ranged DPS classes...

I am leveling a bard right now, been thinking to switch to a machinist as it seems like it could be easier to play. As I'm not sure I dig songs + dots management, esp in AOE situations I get quite stressed already. Would machinist be more fun with almost as good DPS as meta jobs if executed properly? I have a very low ping.

I've read a lot on the forum already, watched a lot of Youtube videos. And seen that all content can be cleared with all the classes... Which is great, but it really bothers me to see that tanks sometimes deal more DPS than I do in the instanced content... Especially on the single target. And no matter how hard I do my rotations (get quite stressed trying really hard) and barely beat a tank, sometimes below. No way I can compete with summoners or samurai. Sad. Will bard dps increase as I continue to level or should I drop and switch to machinist?

I know I could reach end content with either of the classes and I can get into parties anyway but being a bottom of the barrel every time is not cool and makes me not like the game so much. Sad, as otherwise I really love the game. I'm feeling like I'm being pushed onto the melee side if I want to deal good physical DPS. Spellcasters never interest me. So here we are...

Ultimately, I'm thinking if it's worth continuing with the bard or level machinist or force a melee class on myself. I don't want to find another mmo, not yet anyway lol.

What are your thoughts?

[Burningskull]

Ranged DPS have low personal DPS cause they give raid wide DPS. Personally I'd rather they remove raid DPS and just focus on every job boosting their own damage, and make every job feel different to play. That way you could take w/e job you wanted. Granted you can still take w/e job you want, you just get punished for not having one of all the roles which is bs imo.

[SamRF]

Ranged DPS have low personal DPS cause they give raid wide DPS. Personally I'd rather they remove raid DPS and just focus on every job boosting their own damage, and make every job feel different to play. That way you could take w/e job you wanted. Granted you can still take w/e job you want, you just get punished for not having one of all the roles which is bs imo.

They are still bottom tier for Raid DPS (personal dps + buff contribution).

[SamRF]

Even though Machinist seems better dps wise, I'd take Bard over Machinist any day cause it's imo a very fun job to play, especially compared to machinist which lacks complexity imo.

[Connor]

I can definitely see why Bard would feel awful to play at lower levels. As far as I’m aware it’s the only job that has an entire job gauge that literally doesn’t exist until level 80, since you don’t have access to Song Gauge until you learn Apex Arrow.

Personally I’d say maybe try and stick with it until level 80 and see how it feels when you have full access to what the job offers. Though that’s easier said than done if you aren’t enjoying it

In terms of where Bard will be in future it’s hard to say.

If their personal DPS is raised they have to take a hit to their already limited support capabilities.

If they get their support capabilities raised they become an immediate guaranteed raid spot and dps balance is broken.

If they try to balance personal DPS with raid contribution, then we’re likely going to fall into the same spot as we’re in currently, which is the ‘meh’ spot; you can’t fail with this job, but it’s like, ‘meh, can’t we get anything better lol’.

Given what devs have done before it’s likely that Bard will just receive overall DPS potency increases. Whether or not that will serve to make the job feel less ‘meh’ relative to others, i think we can only wait and see what happens when 5.3 drops to find out

[Kabooa]

Machinist needs a thing or two to expand its depth, but it's not without enjoyment.

[Claire_Pendragon]

thoughts?

Since physical ranged can "run and shoot" unlike casters, and dont have positionals, unlike melee, i dont see SE raising their personal dmg and total rDPS to equal that of the other 2. The idea is that when boss mechanics are going off, the lost GCDs from not hitting the boss as melee or caster "make up" for the DPS physical ranged maintain. Of course once u do the fight enough, and minimize downtime, your uptime is almost always keeping the GCD going.
People used to run all BRD only groups, due to making it so easy to dodge enemy AoEs and do mechanics. So SE nerfed BRDs (and MCH) into having cast bars for HW. (Evenetually this was removed, since ppl hate it. and because SE just did it wrong, but thats a different topic) The fact BRD had less personal DPS was also because ppl stacked ARC in 1.0 for basically the same reason. So when jobs came out, ARC didnt get the DPS boost everyone else did, and instead became a support. (This sorta worked, but 2.0 brought BRD stacking back as i mentioned)

Overall, physical ranged are inherently broken, and need something to tone them down. Most games just nerf their DPS, but we all know why thats not a reasonable fix to a DPS role.
What will SE do? idk. ATM having a physical ranged is a 1% DPS increase based on the party stat bonus, so they are still worth bringing, but having 2 is only ok if your melee/casters are struggling too much on maintaining uptime.
Its not a horrible system, but still needs some work.

Methods I could see as possibilities, but seem too simplistic for an answer;
(1) Decreased GCD. The faster youre firing off GCDs, the busier you are, and the less focus you have. (Since melee already have this, it wouldnt change much for balance, dunno why ranged doesnt have this by default)
(2) More multitasking. BRDs multitasking is roughly the right idea, but they keep making it easier with less multitasking. (Look at MCH and now DNC, and their straight forward playstyles)
(3) Give them 0.5 second cast bars. low enough to weave oGCDs, low enough to give them mobility, but high enough to force them to "stop and go". (They still need more multitasking than casters/melee to be ballanced)
(4) Distance positionals. (This seems kinda meh out of the 4 imo.)

[Akiudo]

2. The idea is that when boss mechanics are going off, the lost GCDs from not hitting the boss as melee or caster "make up" for the DPS physical ranged maintain. Of course once u do the fight enough, and minimize downtime, your uptime is almost always keeping the GCD going.

not going into the rest as you do make some reasonable points/even if i'm not totally with you on certain ideas, the big problem that i'd like to point out however is that now the dps is so loopsided in favor of the casters/melee that basically even in the worst of worst cases it still "makes up" the difference. if we in fact where in a situation where in the beginning when fights are new and/or if you simply look at the bottom half of the playerbase you could see physical ranged pull ahead than there would be value in "free" movement, as however even in week 1 and even at like the 25% physical ranged where allready among the weakest, if not the outright weakest jobs that simply leaves the melees/casters overcompensated.

it would be fine and reasonable, (given the situation as is) if with having fights more optimized and entering the realm of "better play" melee/caster start pulling ahead, however the ability to do so in itself is an advantage, and advantages need disadvantages to counterbalance them.

now you could say the physical ranged have the advantage of not losing damage while handling mechanics, however the mechanic handling in itself can be done by casters without problems, so yes, the physical ranged advantage is "doesn't lose damage while handling mechanics" not "makes handling mechanic easier", as realistically unless you use an all physical ranged group (which would never happen, if alone for the fact that both melee and caster bring a 1% stat buff with them aswell) it doesn't make much if any difference for the handling of mechanics if you got 2 phys ranged or 1 phys ranged+1 caster.

so coming back to that, the physical rangeds advantage is not losing damage while handling mechanics, their disadvantage is lower dps
caster by comparison have the advantage of higher damage potential. the problem that now arises however is that the caster advantage of "higher damage potential" is so big a lead that even at the absolute bottom tier they still pull ahead of the physical ranged, this however is not a disadvantage compared to the physical ranged, in fact it completly devalues the advantage physical ranged actually do have, that of not losing damage while doing mechanics.

[Claire_Pendragon]

not going into the rest as you do make some reasonable points/even if i'm not totally with you on certain ideas, the big problem that i'd like to point out however is that now the dps is so loopsided in favor of the casters/melee that basically even in the worst of worst cases it still "makes up" the difference. if we in fact where in a situation where in the beginning when fights are new and/or if you simply look at the bottom half of the playerbase you could see physical ranged pull ahead than there would be value in "free" movement, as however even in week 1 and even at like the 25% physical ranged where allready among the weakest, if not the outright weakest jobs that simply leaves the melees/casters overcompensated.

I dont actually think it "makes up the difference" im saying it was the idea behind the decision. I feel the DPS loss is a bit too much. And even then, i dont feel they should have any DPS loss at all in the first place, but instead focus on making the jobs harder, and the reward for "harder to do rotations" is to have ease of movement as your reward.
The other jobs have "easier" rotations, but lack "ease of movement" as compensation. (also not complete loss of movement, or fights that heavily reward movement either) Also, BLM and SMN have way too much movement freedom that always lines up with boss mechanics. Which is another can of worms to further make things unfair.

The rest i mostly agree with, except phrased in ways thats a bit misleading, but still true for whats said.

[Akiudo]

I dont actually think it "makes up the difference" im saying it was the idea behind the decision. I feel the DPS loss is a bit too much. And even then, i dont feel they should have any DPS loss at all in the first place, but instead focus on making the jobs harder, and the reward for "harder to do rotations" is to have ease of movement as your reward.
The other jobs have "easier" rotations, but lack "ease of movement" as compensation. (also not complete loss of movement, or fights that heavily reward movement either) Also, BLM and SMN have way too much movement freedom that always lines up with boss mechanics. Which is another can of worms to further make things unfair.

The rest i mostly agree with, except phrased in ways thats a bit misleading, but still true for whats said.

sorry if this came of as disagreeing with you, i didn't actually want to shot your argument down, i was mostly trying to illustrate just where this current decision falls flat.

aside from that like i said i'm mostly in agreement with what you wrote, things that "make it harder to do well" or at least reward doing well more than doing whatever is in essence the way to go, at least i believe it is.

i do however think that people that right now scream the loudest about physical ranged superiority will just keep doing so, like i'm 100% sure say bard could have to juggle 7 different non aligning cooldowns and end up with a variance even higher than blackmages and people would still say "bard easy, free movement". mind you, thats not a problem with any argument you made, its just how the forums often look if one reads through them.