We cannot achieve balance while DPS jobs have utilities

[Connor]

The long term solution will be to treat Ranged as a single category for the purposes of LB generation and 1% damage buffs (i.e. combinations that break from the 2/2/2/2 format are considered non-standard, similar to how it currently works for solo tank and solo healer violations). Then DPS and utility balance really only matters within a given role category (tank/healer/melee/ranged). At that point you could probably turn Phoenix Down into a role action for Ranged jobs, such that you can bring any combination of two Ranged that you like.

It’s a cool idea, but I don’t think this would be possible with the current role skill system? Either you end up with phys ranged getting a bunch of caster support tools they’re essentially incapable of using (Swiftcast, Lucid, Surecast, Sleep I guess but nobody uses that anyway lol). Or we’d end up with casters getting a bunch of random physical skills like Head/Foot Graze and Arm’s Length.
Though saying that, having Summoners whack an enemy over the head with a book and silencing them would be extremely comical lol, like the enemy is so shocked by what you’ve just done they can no longer concentrate on their actions.

I feel like collapsing ‘ranged’ into one category simply isn’t possible so long as the role skills exist, unless they were completely reworked for said merger. Though, maybe they should look into the role skill system itself too, since it’s mostly sat untouched for a while now