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

[Connor]

What scares me is that they’re going to completely ignore some of the issues Bard has because ‘but it’s already got high dps’. I also hope they don’t simply inflate Dancer and Machinist potencies, since there are many more issues with the ranged dps sub-role than just their potencies lol

[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).

[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.

[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:

[MagiusNecros]

Ranged Phys are generally braindead to play particularly MCH/DNC. And damage is king in this game if you do less damage then there is little virtue in taking the class. And Melee/Casters do more damage.

Particularly RPR/MNK/SAM/BLM/RDM.

The rest are pretty weak in comparison.

And beyond that if Blue Mage was at the same level cap there would be very little reason to not take BLU's with the huge damage they do and the devs know this I think and gimp them on purpose keeping them stuck in Stormblood.

[Connor]

Ranged DPS are currently stuck in a hellish limbo where they’re in a perpetual state of imbalance.

Either their support is ‘too strong’ and devs start to act like their whole job has to suck by necessity (Dancer), their dps is ‘too strong’ and they get no support at all (Machinist), or they’re over-tuned and have excellent dps and party support (Bard, at least in regard to rDPS. Their utility sucks lol). Then the devs just play musical chairs with those three spots every expansion.

It’s very clear to most players that the ranged DPS role as a whole is in serious need of an rework, just like healers (and arguably tanks but I know less about them). Their current design philosophy for physical ranged is like they’re throwing darts a board that has a picture of the ranged job icons. Whichever icon the dart lands on gets to be the ‘strong’ one for the next expansion. And it’s benefitting nobody; not even the ones being made ‘strong’.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Bard has very high dps / rDPS since it seems the dart landed on them for Endwalker. But that doesn’t mean it was just washed clean of the faults it had before, if anything they’ve just been exacerbated or replaced with new ones. Though, because Bards get to be the ‘strong’ ones, the devs will pretend we don’t exist the whole expansion and it won’t matter next expansion because we’ll get yet another rework lol, probably reinstating DoTs as the primary Bard focus…then removing all of its support capabilities because ‘it has more dps now’ lol

[Reimmi]

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.

Boring is preference
I find dancer incredibly fun because i like proc based gameplay, same with bard
I find mch boring for having 0 procs on the flipside,

[Anacrusys]

Dancer in a Nutshell

https://youtu.be/K-jaOfIHGko

[Risvertasashi]

Ranged DPS are currently stuck in a hellish limbo where they’re in a perpetual state of imbalance.

Either their support is ‘too strong’ and devs start to act like their whole job has to suck by necessity (Dancer), their dps is ‘too strong’ and they get no support at all (Machinist), or they’re over-tuned and have excellent dps and party support (Bard, at least in regard to rDPS. Their utility sucks lol). Then the devs just play musical chairs with those three spots every expansion.

It’s very clear to most players that the ranged DPS role as a whole is in serious need of an rework, just like healers (and arguably tanks but I know less about them). Their current design philosophy for physical ranged is like they’re throwing darts a board that has a picture of the ranged job icons. Whichever icon the dart lands on gets to be the ‘strong’ one for the next expansion. And it’s benefitting nobody; not even the ones being made ‘strong’.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Bard has very high dps / rDPS since it seems the dart landed on them for Endwalker. But that doesn’t mean it was just washed clean of the faults it had before, if anything they’ve just been exacerbated or replaced with new ones. Though, because Bards get to be the ‘strong’ ones, the devs will pretend we don’t exist the whole expansion and it won’t matter next expansion because we’ll get yet another rework lol, probably reinstating DoTs as the primary Bard focus…then removing all of its support capabilities because ‘it has more dps now’ lol

I feel like you're about 90% there.

MCH has a niche and it seems a bit undertuned right now, but I don't think it's in need of rework-level changes. Selfish DPS is its thing within the role, given just a sliiiight boost I think it'd be fine.

Now BRD and DNC are the real problem. Because they're both essentially the same thing. So either BRD is a worse DNC, or DNC is a worse BRD.

If SE significantly buffs DNC in 6.08 then all it will do is flip exactly that: DNC becomes the better BRD instead of the worse BRD. But one way or another, neither has a distinct identity so tweaking potencies won't really solve anything other than to make those who prefer the other one happier (but at a zero sum cost to those that prefer whichever is currently better).

[Connor]

I feel like you're about 90% there.

MCH has a niche and it seems a bit undertuned right now, but I don't think it's in need of rework-level changes. Selfish DPS is its thing within the role, given just a sliiiight boost I think it'd be fine.

Now BRD and DNC are the real problem. Because they're both essentially the same thing. So either BRD is a worse DNC, or DNC is a worse BRD.

If SE significantly buffs DNC in 6.08 then all it will do is flip exactly that: DNC becomes the better BRD instead of the worse BRD. But one way or another, neither has a distinct identity so tweaking potencies won't really solve anything other than to make those who prefer the other one happier (but at a zero sum cost to those that prefer whichever is currently better).

That does make sense. To be honest, Machinist is the ranged I know the least about, so I’m not surprised I’ve misplaced it. Last time I really played it was Heavensward so I always just think of the brd/mch buffing wars they had back then lol. As for Machinist in its current form, I don’t really know enough about it or the issues it has to say what it’s like compared to brd/dnc.

The Bard/Dancer thing is sad because to me there’s plenty of ways they could’ve made them both have a similar function whilst still being different.
I mean, Bard originally was never about dps support (if you go back to 1.0 it could even use conjurer spells like Cure and Stoneskin), besides Foe Requiem which was more a way to do something with your MP when nobody was dying so you didn’t need to Ballad/Paeon, and originally only affected elemental resistances (which went about as well as expected lol). So I based on their own design they could’ve continued along those lines with Bard being a more utility-oriented support dps and Dancer being a more damage/rDPS style support.

Or they could have even just went down the route of like, Dancer provides its support through the Steps mechanics while Bard provides its support through singing with a 1.5 sec cast time and MP drain mechanic as it did previously. I mean, the devs said ‘everyone complained about Bards having to cast’, but that was never about the songs, it was about the developers slapping cast times over our entire weaponskill set lol. Without any kind of adjustments to how those skills actually worked, in a bizarre attempt to balance Bard/Machinist’s mobility.

I can only speak for myself, but it doesn’t bother me when jobs perform similar functions as long as they have a distinct ‘feel’ to them and how they’re executed. Within reason of course lol