There's a huge Physical range shortage in PF and Statics

[CatboySweatlord]

There's a huge Physical range shortage in PF and Statics, this is due to the fact that Bard is incredibly good and the other two options noticeably not, the way they handle balance within the role is incredibly ass-backward and promotes Job locking, Last Expansion it was dancer being extremely broken, and the other two didn't catch up in popularity till the tail end of the expansion. Please buff MCH and DNC so they don't have a less than 10% playrate combined

[CKNovel]

Bard is not incredibly good, it only has damage.
The job suffers multiple problems, if they get punished a lot by KO, their dots deals only 8% of their total damage. They have 2 dots and it used to deal 11-12% of their damage.
There is also problems with the different song power, apparently Mage's Ballad is weaker (right after it got charges) and Army's Peon, the filler song, is among the strongest.

MCH and DNC, you know the story.
DNC is a weaker BRD.
MCH is a BRD but that only brings personal DPS lower than BRD.

Yet, during ShB DNC wasn't broken, it was much stronger than the two others when the group was playing near perfection.
Outside of that, if the group wasn't perfect it was MCH then BRD. BRD ended up taking the lead at the end of the expansion.

[CatboySweatlord]

This game suffers a meta where things that do the most damage are what get picked, when Ibsaw bard is good, it is good within the scope of the phys range role, if a phys range wasn't required double melee double caster meta would be real

[Lastelli]

I think it has more to do with the fact that MCH and DNC are...boring. Yes, sorry, that's what they are. BRD is the only one that has a modicum of complexity and fun in it.
They should probably focus more on giving them a more interesting gameplay loop. But yeah, given the current situation, some potency buffs are clearly needed for both MCH and DNC. It's not going to change much in terms of job popularity, I feel.

[Rika007]

Potency buffs are needed across the entire role. Bard isn't strong, it's just better then the other 2. The mobility tax is a freaking meme and is one of the most poor design choices ever implemented into the game, and the only reason ranged is still even brought to the role is because of the awful mechanic of the 1% role party buff. Which is no more then the equivalent of a parent telling their kids to play with someone they don't want too.

Until they start designing the raids to actually take advantage of ranged mobility that enforces melee downtime, people will continue to be disappointed with the ranged tax and have issues with it. In fact, current boss design pretty much enforces the exact opposite, as in any savage fight a ranged player not sticking close to their healer (who will be grouped up close with their melees unless there is a spread mechanic, which do not happen nearly as often as raid wide AoE's) will be met with some pretty irritated healers. Thus making ranged players deal with the same get in/get out mechanics as melees do.

The only mechanics melee's really still have to hold up as a true issue is positionals, and those are less and less as the expansions go on, especially when we get at least 1 sometimes 2 bosses a savage tier that has no positionals at all. That can account for a small gap between ranged physicals along with cast times on casters. But that gap should be small, 100 to 200 rdps at most and only at higher skill levels. Not over 500-100 higher between melees played terribly and a well played ranged player.

Role balance should be balanced around the support kit a job brings. Dancer and Bard should be at the bottom yes, but they should also not be getting out damaged by 500 or more by Dragoon and Ninja. Machinist should not be putting up the same numbers as San and Black Mage but it also shouldn't be getting blown away by Reaper and Monk, two jobs that also bring party wide healing buffs, damage mitigation, self healing, and raid wide damage boosts; when literally all Machinist provides is damage and one raid wide defensive buff.

[ssunny2008]

The mobility tax is a freaking meme

"Me, YP said, that class balance isn´t based on their difficulty. Mobility-tax is a lie!"

I guess nobody at SE is a RDPS main, so they just don´t give af.

[Shironeko_Narunyan]

when literally all Machinist provides is damage and one raid wide defensive buff.

And that defensive buff is also a role action mechanically, just not in name (yet).

[Dyvid]

Potency buffs are needed across the entire role. Bard isn't strong, it's just better then the other 2. The mobility tax is a freaking meme and is one of the most poor design choices ever implemented into the game, and the only reason ranged is still even brought to the role is because of the awful mechanic of the 1% role party buff. Which is no more then the equivalent of a parent telling their kids to play with someone they don't want too.

Until they start designing the raids to actually take advantage of ranged mobility that enforces melee downtime, people will continue to be disappointed with the ranged tax and have issues with it. In fact, current boss design pretty much enforces the exact opposite, as in any savage fight a ranged player not sticking close to their healer (who will be grouped up close with their melees unless there is a spread mechanic, which do not happen nearly as often as raid wide AoE's) will be met with some pretty irritated healers. Thus making ranged players deal with the same get in/get out mechanics as melees do.

The only mechanics melee's really still have to hold up as a true issue is positionals, and those are less and less as the expansions go on, especially when we get at least 1 sometimes 2 bosses a savage tier that has no positionals at all. That can account for a small gap between ranged physicals along with cast times on casters. But that gap should be small, 100 to 200 rdps at most and only at higher skill levels. Not over 500-100 higher between melees played terribly and a well played ranged player.

Role balance should be balanced around the support kit a job brings. Dancer and Bard should be at the bottom yes, but they should also not be getting out damaged by 500 or more by Dragoon and Ninja. Machinist should not be putting up the same numbers as San and Black Mage but it also shouldn't be getting blown away by Reaper and Monk, two jobs that also bring party wide healing buffs, damage mitigation, self healing, and raid wide damage boosts; when literally all Machinist provides is damage and one raid wide defensive buff.

It's far time for SE sit down and decide exactly what each Role is actually suppose to do. We continue to see complaints from Tanks and Healers about how their roles are design, Casters have mages that don't cast anymore, Physical Ranged that don't offer any rDPS buffs to the group, DPS in general offering healing and defense buffs that are starting to be considered more than novelty.

In summary:

[CKNovel]

I think it has more to do with the fact that MCH and DNC are...boring. Yes, sorry, that's what they are. BRD is the only one that has a modicum of complexity and fun in it.
They should probably focus more on giving them a more interesting gameplay loop. But yeah, given the current situation, some potency buffs are clearly needed for both MCH and DNC. It's not going to change much in terms of job popularity, I feel.

MCH got a rework during ShB, DNC was introduced.
The popularity surprisingly fell off, it wasn't shiny anymore.

That's the cost of designing a job to make it appealing for everyone, players will move on the next shiny thing.
RPR and SMN will probably see a drop in the next expansion.

[OtakuSempai]

I think it has more to do with the fact that MCH and DNC are...boring. Yes, sorry, that's what they are. BRD is the only one that has a modicum of complexity and fun in it.
They should probably focus more on giving them a more interesting gameplay loop. But yeah, given the current situation, some potency buffs are clearly needed for both MCH and DNC. It's not going to change much in terms of job popularity, I feel.

Finally someone who gets it.

Damn near the entire role is boring as hell. If it is satisfying to play people will pay it. Look at old WHM, etc. Performance has little impact on playrate in general.