The unrewarding state of physical ranged

[Rai_Takara]

We're at the stage where on some bosses the gap is so large that a 25-30th caster/melee dps will beat a 75th percentile phys ranged. It's actually much easier to play a melee at 25th than push a bard to 75th. Dancer is also in a rough spot where they only crawl out of the worst rdps slot at near max percentile with groups that are among the best in the world. The issue with the tax is that it doesn't account for skill at all. There is no reward for playing well. You could play really well and you'll still contribute less, you're just there for your 1% party buff.

Does that mean it's a role designed for people who aren't great at the game then? Not really. The gap shortens marginally, but the phys ranged are still down at the bottom even at the lowest ranks. For players at lower skill levels, the problem is often uptime, reaction speed and raid awareness which are far larger losses than interrupting a cast or two or breaking melee range for a few GCD's. Those same problems apply to phys ranged, even DNC is high apm and easy to drift cd's and Bard has high apm, 2 Dots, songs and a gauge to juggle. If you aren't great at the game sadly a phys ranged won't fix that issue and magically boost your group contribution. The advantage of mobility at a range and no positions exists but it's a very small one when you get any experience at playing.

The issue is you're comparing to a melee. You should only be comparing your performance and effort among your fellow ranged. If a healer is busting their butt keeping the party alive and do damage, do you see them complaining that they aren't doing BLM damage because their BLM was drooling? No. Similarly, as a ranged, you should only look at your fellow ranged because while melee/ranged/caster are all DPS, they are different roles. The only reason they aren't separated further in the UI is for convenience lol.

[Dogempire]

The issue is you're comparing to a melee. You should only be comparing your performance and effort among your fellow ranged. If a healer is busting their butt keeping the party alive and do damage, do you see them complaining that they aren't doing BLM damage because their BLM was drooling? No. Similarly, as a ranged, you should only look at your fellow ranged because while melee/ranged/caster are all DPS, they are different roles. The only reason they aren't separated further in the UI is for convenience lol.

Not really, ranged, casters, and melee all compete for the same 4 spots of a full party. If a ranged job isn't up to snuff then you can easily replace them with a melee job, but you can't say that about replacing tanks and healers with dps jobs regarding savage level content since the former needs 2 tanks to deal with tankbusters, and the latter is extremely difficult if not borderline impossible to solo heal in E11S and E12S

[Rai_Takara]

Not really, ranged, casters, and melee all compete for the same 4 spots of a full party. If a ranged job isn't up to snuff then you can easily replace them with a melee job, but you can't say that about replacing tanks and healers with dps jobs regarding savage level content since the former needs 2 tanks to deal with tankbusters, and the latter is extremely difficult if not borderline impossible to solo heal in E11S and E12S

They don't. That's why the 1% buff exists. You can't omit a role without a penalty. That penalty, along with reduced LB generation is far worse than having a lower performing DPS (better to bring that 25th melee for that 1% rather than replace him with a 75th caster).

Ranged compete for the ranged spot.
Casters for the caster spot.
Melee of the melee spot.

The 4th spot is a free slot. This usually goes to the higher DPS of course, like caster or melee, but ranged isn't uncommon. Regardless, every role has a spot secured.

Mitigation? Casters and Melee have it too

You surely must be joking if you ignore that ranged DPS is the only DPS sans healers that can mitigate damage regardless of type and without needing a boss to target. Feint is useless 9/10 so even that isn't something melees can count on.

The ranged role needs something impactful to make it worth taking other than some welfare 1% party stats buff.

The 1% is impactful. Bringing us for the 1% is exactly the same as bringing us for mobility or bringing us for some one off skill like MP refresh. In fact, more impactful because unlike a ranged who refuses to press their support buttons, at least the 1% is guaranteed regardless of player skill.

[Dogempire]

The 1% is impactful. Bringing us for the 1% is exactly the same as bringing us for mobility or bringing us for some one off skill like MP refresh. In fact, more impactful because unlike a ranged who refuses to press their support buttons, at least the 1% is guaranteed regardless of player skill.

Let me put it this way, make ranged impactful without making the role get a shoe-in because of the XIV equivalent of affirmative action. A class being required because of a 1% buff that would otherwise be dropped without it isn't actually being chosen on merit, but rather on welfare.

Ranged isn't any more useful than the other roles, it doesn't do more damage, it isn't a better support, it doesn't mitigate better, it just gives a 1% buff.

[Rika007]

The 1% is impactful. Bringing us for the 1% is exactly the same as bringing us for mobility or bringing us for some one off skill like MP refresh. In fact, more impactful because unlike a ranged who refuses to press their support buttons, at least the 1% is guaranteed regardless of player skill.

Sorry, I know this is your opinion but what a terrible take and depressing if that is the actual reason why we lost so many of our support skills. That's like saying, "Hey, skilled players who enjoyed and took advantage of things like Foe's Requiem, original hyper charge, refresh, palisade, dismantle, original troubadour, etc? We understand you love these abilities and that you've put a lot of work into learning and getting the best use out of them, but because a bunch of really bad players never bothered pressing them anyway, we're gonna take that away from you. But don't worry, we're gonna give you another buff. You get it just by existing. and those bad players who never learned how to play your job properly? They get it too."

I'm sorry but if that's the justification, then every ranged player who takes umbrage with it has 100% justification to complain about it. Delete skill expression and lower the ceiling just because bad players couldn't be bothered? I wouldn't care if it gave a 5% damage buff. That's just garbage.

[Mahoukenshi]

Sorry, I know this is your opinion but what a terrible take and depressing if that is the actual reason why we lost so many of our support skills. That's like saying, "Hey, skilled players who enjoyed and took advantage of things like Foe's Requiem, original hyper charge, refresh, palisade, dismantle, original troubadour, etc? We understand you love these abilities and that you've put a lot of work into learning and getting the best use out of them, but because a bunch of really bad players never bothered pressing them anyway, we're gonna take that away from you. But don't worry, we're gonna give you another buff. You get it just by existing. and those bad players who never learned how to play your job properly? They get it too."

I'm sorry but if that's the justification, then every ranged player who takes umbrage with it has 100% justification to complain about it. Delete skill expression and lower the ceiling just because bad players couldn't be bothered? I wouldn't care if it gave a 5% damage buff. That's just garbage.

As a proud bad-skilled player, I wholeheartly agree with this post. A 1% pity bonus just for being there, no matter how good/bad one plays sounds quite depressing.

[Kabooa]

Foe's Requiem, original hyper charge, refresh, palisade, dismantle, original troubadour, etc?.

I mean, Foe Requiem might be the only thing on that list that's worth calling out.

Lets not pretend Hyper Charge was popular with Stormblood machinist. I liked the thing, but I was definitely in the minority.

Dismantle vs Tactician, tactician wins out. You can pin point things better with dismantle, but you can't target untargetables, you can't affect multiple enemies. It always protects all of your party members, it protects against all damage (Unlike Feint and Addle, which have all the weaknesses of Dismantle with a worse cooldown by comparison), and Troubadour is better off as the flavor variant than "I really hope the boss agrees with my dps rotation" Troubadour. Maybe you could make the argument that Machinist has room for both, but given how much weight people put on having comparable DPS contribution in the end, that's just making Machinist better than the other two.

The attribute bonus is a perma-bandaid. That's it. It ensures role diversity even when things are terribly out of whack. It is a singular lever in the total package that goes into tuning, but at the end of the day it ensures representation.

Theoretically it allows them to take bigger risks in design with a wider margin of results, though they do not take advantage of this.