So... This is the "improved encounter design"?

[Alice_Rivers]

Both of those seem fairly reasonable to me as a mostly heal/ranged player who mostly dabbles in NIN from time to time. There is obviously the slidecasting element to that so I'm not entirely sure how caster uptime could be constrained but equally I'm not that creative. I suppose it would be reasonable to have some add phase or something where ranged (preferably casters) have to do something to facilitate melee uptime? Mostly the having ranged/casters doing something since I still prefer melee uptime being tied to the melee player's skill rather than dependant on someone else (tank not withstanding since positioning should be their job) doing their job properly. I'm sure people better at melee and the game in general than me will have better ideas.

[Shurrikhan]

There is obviously the slidecasting element to that so I'm not entirely sure how caster uptime could be constrained

A small note that may be of use:

Everyone has access to 100% uptime, technically, regardless of content, due to fall-back options. It's effective uptime, the portion of maximum striking dummy DPS or the available positioning required for that, that differs with context.

Some variance in the term effective uptime:

• Can be used to describe actual portion of damage produced, in which case it's basically just %yield.
• Can be used to describe just one's potential for output rather than actual output, including positional access.
• Can be used to describe only what requires melee range / standing time, rather than positionals or anything outside of one's control beyond those two concerns (interested more in basic potential than real output).