Why are Ranged DPS so unfun to play?

[Shurrikhan]

It has niche use in recovery, the same as raises on a SMN and RDM, as it'll fill up a recently raised healer.

Having power, though, is not the same thing as being fun.

If I had to hit an oGCD once every 2 minutes or increasingly suffer a damage down debuff until I hit it again, that button would be impactful, but by no means interesting, let alone fun.

The only thing offering any complexity to Refresh was in its first use per fight, via its compromise between not wanting to waste its MP generation on too early a use and needing its Enmity purge early enough not to pull off the tank despite Physical Ranged at the time being significantly bursty.

That's gone now, leaving it only to be used on CD. You may as well say that Lucid Dreaming is oh so exciting to press.

If MP were reworked to be an actual mechanic and Refresh to have even an ounce of worthwhile decision-making behind it, then I'd agree. But Stormblood Refresh in today's context would be as brainless and bloated as Lucid Dreaming is now (relative to just increasing healers' passive MP generation).

And honestly, SE should lean more into incentives to swap job within the role.

Sure, but you should never do that by tailoring the jobs within a role each to basic categories like ST, 2-target, and AoE. Else, you're just stuck with Bards for some extreme niche within Raids, Dancers for Dungeons, and Machinists for everything else, etc.

That decision-making should instead come from the exploitable value of their actual utility, not just the raid damage buffs we pretend to be anything more than number-shuffling.

That every job can nonetheless complete content is still no warrant for specifically designing them towards pigeon-holes rather than per the gestalt affordances of their whole kits. Yes, the feel of Physical Ranged jobs would almost certainly benefit from more variance in their utility (and more utility in general), but raid buffs preferring certain of basic situations is not that.

Yeah relative to SCH's expedience. It won't have a damage mitigation attached to it, so it's more akin to extra movement for executing mechanics.

Sounds good, then! Imo, this would be much more apt than the likes of a buffed Palisade.

That said, I'd personally rather it be job-specific. For instance, axe Peloton and grant back Swiftsong, with En Avant buffing allies passed through (or those who pass along its wake), alongside perhaps one other effect. And perhaps give MCH something different altogether; not every job needs to grant the same utility (which, unlike basic damage raid buffs, movement speed buffs actually would be).

[Payotz]

Having power, though, is not the same thing as being fun.
If I had to hit an oGCD once every 2 minutes or increasingly suffer a damage down debuff until I hit it again, that button would be impactful, but by no means interesting, let alone fun.

I don't think you'd have to hit it once every 2 minutes. It's an extra cooldown that you can use for progging, or for recovering.
The very fact that you have a recovery option to help out a role, like healers, or to just plain help pump out more healing throughput because they keep spamming AoE heals makes it fun.
It's more utility without making it 100% mandatory. Another tool in the box.

Sure, but you should never do that by tailoring the jobs within a role each to basic categories like ST, 2-target, and AoE. Else, you're just stuck with Bards for some extreme niche within Raids, Dancers for Dungeons, and Machinists for everything else, etc.

Why not? Most jobs have specific niches because of little factors here and there.
Like, even physical ranged themselves have always had the single target (mch) > 2 target (brd) > multi target (dnc) niche in regards to damage, and it never affects their ability to clear all content types.

These raid buffs will lean into more of that niche, making it less homogenized in the process.
It incentivizes being an omni role without making it mandatory, which is my point. It won't pidgeon hole jobs into specific scenarios because they can still clear content as baseline.

If you want to be more optimal and efficient, then yeah you can switch jobs around. If you don't care about that, then you can just stick to your main and clear content that way.

That said, I'd personally rather it be job-specific. For instance, axe Peloton and grant back Swiftsong, with En Avant buffing allies passed through (or those who pass along its wake), alongside perhaps one other effect. And perhaps give MCH something different altogether; not every job needs to grant the same utility (which, unlike basic damage raid buffs, movement speed buffs actually would be).

I don't really know if something that's restrictive as "En Avant leaving a trail of movement behind" is something that's healthy of encounter design or even fight design as a whole.
Utility shouldn't hamper or make a job clunky because of it. You can't double weave if you use En Avant due to the animation lock, so it'll be a detriment to the experience to even execute the utility.

Like don't get me wrong, this is fine if the encounter design was completely different from what we have now, but because of the choreographic nature of mechanics, it's really never going to work out.

Making utility baseline will enhance the identity of the role itself, making sure that every job can clear content designed with that utility in design while traits that enhance the baseline utility and will keep the jobs feeling unique.

It's the same logic that I have with raid buffs. The role itself has raid buffs/vuln ups, the role has defensives, the role has combat peloton, which gives the devs the ability to design encounters with it in mind, while traits and how raid buffs work will give the jobs a specific niche, but won't make it that they're required to clear the content.

[george357]

all my main jobs are ranged and i for one like playing them.

[VictorSpoils]

Lower overall damage, lower skill ceiling, less appealing aesthetics... Not sure if those are entirely true but it feels like it.

[SilverSkyway]

I find all the rdps the most fun out of thee few jobs I've played but I like simple.

Mch my favorite rotation in the game too. Simple and feel powerful despite it not. Bard whom I main (atm) I hate the rotation and doesn't feel powerful but I like the archer glams. Dancer in the middle playstyle and hate Dancer glams.

Now I will say each rdps needs a a little fixing, namely bard. I feel bard doesn't know what play style it went to be and feel weak by that.
Mch as much I hate to say is useless in group. Can it be strong yeah. But they bring nothing and tired with the other supportable rdps in damage.
Dancer... rng can be evil at times.

Warrior whom I tried leveling I felt stress and overwhelm which to me isn't fun.
RdM is actually okay compered to ShB but i'm not the biggest fan of playing it.
Summoner isn't a pet class. I got nothing here.

[Haventale]

I find them fun to play…

[Stasya]

I find them fun to play…

As melee main doing content on dancer is abysmall snoozefest. You have all the freedom in terms of your position but entire rotation consists of just 2 buttons.

[Mimilu]

As melee main doing content on dancer is abysmall snoozefest. You have all the freedom in terms of your position but entire rotation consists of just 2 buttons.

I rarely play as melee but for me, DNC is more of a priority system with a rotation vs a complete rotation set in stone. °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
Is your Standard Step buff at 5-10 seconds?
Is your opener/rotation resetting with Technical Step and Devilment ready and Flourish at around 10-or less seconds?
If you're mid rotation and the enemy became untouchable, will using Flourish when it pops back misalign it for your opener reset?
Do you have 80+ Esprit?
If you're in a situation where you have to AoE multiple enemies, are their 2-5 enemies or more? (If 2-5, use Standard Step on cooldown, for more just use weaponskills)
Do you have Weaponskill procs?
Do you have Feather Dance III proc?
If you're out of Technical Step, do you have more then 3 Feathers for Feather Dance 1/2?
If no, use your vanilla weaponskill rotation.

[Duskane]

fun in small burst gets boring over long periods of prog/raid pretty much how i feel about our current range.

[Jirah]

For starters DNC/MCH are bar none the easiest jobs in the game so maybe that’s a reason, yea SMN is just as easy but at least they have a res to feel important. I’m not saying it needs a res but the game as piss easy as it is doesn’t need “babies first DPS”