Why are Ranged DPS so unfun to play?

[Selvokaz]

Machinist is probably the one exception but even that's kind of hit or miss.

but Bard and Dancer feel so uninspired, which is kind of ironic given their jobs.

How could they improve the overall gameplay of either to make them more interesting to use and play?

[Shuuli]

I personally love ranged dps I dislike melee. I think its just personal preference. I especially love dancer. I love Bard as well. I am leveling it now. Havent gotten invested ot MCH yet but gonna do soon for the dps mount.

The only reason why I dont level the other dps ranged classes yet is the suffering with dps queues.

[Shurrikhan]

Bard and Dancer feel so uninspired, which is kind of ironic given their jobs.

Ranged with the occasional go-in burst damage or utility event is usually my preferred role, but I'll agree that the modern incarnations of each ranged can feel very... uninspired, true, to the point I just use Bard to speed up dungeon runs via Peloton and otherwise swap back to melee or BLM.

How could they improve the overall gameplay of either to make them more interesting to use and play?

By not gutting all or nearly all their mechanics outside of 'hit the flashing button' (via procs or 1-2-3 combos), presumably? A little late for that, though.

[Kolsykol]

Funnily enough I actually find DNC more fun than MCH ( might have to do with my love for NIN tho, dance system is somewhat similar to Ninjutsus with steps leading up to a big hitter ).
I am currently leveling BRD and I think it seems more fun too but I'll refrain from commenting too much on that since I basically have no real experience with it.
BRD is actually the only Job I never bothered to level up in any expansion, Highest I ever got it was 50 something in Heavensward I think.
So maybe because it's quite fresh to me it makes me a bit biased in its favor.

Imo tho I find that the lack of hardcasting generally tend to make mechanics a bit less fun on them compared to uh.
Well BLM and RDM now, not so much SMN since it's basically all insta-casts.
But that's also a personal preference, I like the game within a game you play with positioning and moving out of things last second to get a cast off.

I can see how BRD might be quite spammy tho, but I think DNC is pretty solid.
My main gripe with it really is that a lot of the animations cancel when you move which is a bit unfortunate considering that they're dancers it kinda breaks that flow visually.
Gameplay-wise tho I don't rly have any big issues with it.

[Ransu]

I personally really like BRD, but to each their own.

[Kolsykol]

I personally really like BRD, but too each their own.

I've heard positive things about it from a lot of people ( as well as DNC ).
Based on my understanding tho there are some issues with death recovery since your songs don't reset on death?
I can see that being problematic, but it's a QoL issue that could easily be solved.

[Ransu]

I've heard positive things about it from a lot of people ( as well as DNC ).
Based on my understanding tho there are some issues with death recovery since your songs don't reset on death?
I can see that being problematic, but it's a QoL issue that could easily be solved.

Every job deals with that though...that's the penalty for dying to a mechanic.

[george357]

i main 4 jobs brd mch dnc and ninja and i find them all nice jobs to play each in their own way are fun to play.

[Rolder50]

The role that's really fallen by the wayside these days is Caster, seeing as there's only one.

[Kolsykol]

Every job deals with that though...that's the penalty for dying to a mechanic.

I don't think it's quite as drastic for other Jobs tho as it is with BRD.
And the songs are also something that you keep rolling, so no matter when you die you're losing that song.
Losing songs is fundamentally different than for other Jobs, I think it's a uniquely bad thing for BRD.
When you lose a song on BRD that's a 45s buff down the drain and it throws off your song rotation ( you do swap songs a tad earlier tho, but basically ).

I am not saying it isn't bad for other Jobs too, but I think it affects BRD in a way that doesn't affect most other Jobs.
With other Jobs it's quite a bit more contextual and you have to die in especially bad situations while with BRD's it's more consistently bad.

Edit: Also the Coda system is negatively affected by missing a song too and BRD are all about party buffs so it's a pretty shitty situation.
And then there's also songs requiring a target which is a commonly brought up issue I see.
Both of these things screw with your song timings.