Quote Originally Posted by Connor View Post
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
If 8.0 plans to overhaul the existing job designs, then I think revising the Role Action system would be a really good starting point. A lot of Role Actions, as you've pointed out, are archaic, and some primarily have value in niche content like Deep Dungeons. I don't think they've really thought about the system since Stormblood.

I think if you took away damage interrupting casts in general, you could turn Arms' Length into a General action available to all jobs, like Sprint. You likewise could remove Second Wind and give every job a standard 'Potion' General action that restores damage on a fixed recast, with a trait-based upgrade to adjust the potency with level (Hi-Potion, X-potion). You could likewise integrate the various Stuns and Interrupts into a singular Interject, perhaps with a Heavy or Slow additional effect.

Specific to Ranged, the main thing that you would want to carry across is an Addle equivalent. I'd also replace the various raises on Ranged jobs with a Phoenix Down role action with a fixed recast. The Magical Ranged jobs are all very different in their degree of MP management, so I think the likes of Lucid would be better suited as a set of job-specific actions. It's really only Swiftcast that you'd need a more specific solution for, but that may end up being job specific as well.

Likewise, a lot of the more niche Physical Ranged role actions probably could have these integrated as additional effects on their toolkits. I think Petolon could probably be reworked into a combat-based movement tool similar to Expedient, so long as there were appropriate constraints around its recast and reapplication. I want to see more universally useful Role Actions in general.