Lets pretend for a moment that a bunch of CCs being added to the class would be a good idea, it's not but let's pretend.

The point of Ranged Damage is to do damage, giving ranged damage CCs and taking away it's damage turns it into ranged CC not ranged Damage.  

Giving them stronger melee skills means that they are no longer ranged damage they are instead melee.

Handing "distance penalties" means that they are no longer ranged.  

Ranged damage should do DAMAGE first, or it would not be ranged damage.  Also I see you ignored the entire point about the fact that Succ rangers and Archers do not have good SA trading abilities so making them melee would be a bad idea.

If you want to say awakening zerkers need to have their ranged damage toned down great that is fine they are not super squishy.  

I can say nothing about Corsair the OP's other cry, I will let you know if I ever run into an awa corsair in the wild and notice an issue.  I know I have seen awakened Corsairs and don't notice anything special, which tells me they are fine in fact they likely need a buff.

Those were not options that had to be done or even ideas of things I specifically want done.  They're just off the cuff thoughts to give examples of how things could change. In fact, removing damage opens the class up to many options like having more SA or FG abilities and other things you say forces the damage to exist.  I can once again summarize your entire post down to "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas."

P.S. Any damage done at range is ranged damage.  You could do 1 damage and it will still be ranged damage.  The point of everything doesn't have to be overwhelming damage or every single skill would 1 shot everyone.

I see the point you are trying to make but I fail to understand the justification you are trying to get across here.

The point of melee damage...also happens to be to deal damage - being especially effective at melee range. It is the same logic.

In fact, melee characters are much more tanky and have stronger engages so that they are able to get into the effective range for them to deal damage. This is because when you are out of melee the skill does 0 damage...cause it does not hit.

I disagree with how you view range damage, the benefit of range damage is not to deal overwhelming damage. The idea behind range damage is that you are able to inflict damage at a wider range, from afar...at a distance, from angles that are difficult for other players to get to. You are not given damage because you are a range class. You are a range class because you perform most optimally at range - CCs, trading FG, AND damage. It is all encompassing, high damage is not a perk that is exclusive to range nor should it be. Yet every range player wants more protection, they want more iframes, they want more kiting ability. 

Having poor SA trading is irrelevant when you do not need to SA trade. You are not forced to be in melee to be effective.

Now due to the fact that classes are tied to specific characters - I agree that being squishy generally means your class favors builds that focus on dealing damage. But that does not mean you are entitled to just *have damage*. There is a limit to this that should not overshadow build potential.

The OP believes that the positive of being a range class in the current meta is too great compared to negatives. Overall, I am inclined to agree. I am not saying that range is godly, and I am not denying that there are situations out there where those classes struggle. However, with the current state of a lot of range classes - being engaged on is not instant death anymore. In fact, engaging on a range character in a large scale fight is a hazard with how long they can delay you, most classes - except a few whom we all know in the back of our minds - will die to the AoE damage being flaunted around beforehand.

The topic being debated is whether range is completely overtuned right now...why? Why not?

I am also taking this from a large scale perspective only. Dueling and AoS is a completely different topic all together and is impacted more by very specific classes, synergies, compositions and AoS gear. I also assume OP is mainly referring to node wars and siege by mention of capped and uncapped content, awareness and so-on.

Melee damage needs to be tanky and protected because they have to be in the fray to deal the damage.  If the moment they get into the fray the just pop like a baloon they can't deal damage.  

Ranged damage on the other hand does not need the protections of tankyness their protection comes in the ability to stay at range.  

The "OP is only talking about this mode" is a bad argument.  If the game was ONLY 1 mode then that would be a valid concern.  There is not just 1 game mode however, all modes need to be taken into consideration.  If a class is oppressive in 1 area and extremely weak in another that is called balance.  

I agree, classes that rely on melee should have options to mitigate damage in order to perform.

Likewise, range classes do not have to rely on a larger health pool or defensive stats cause they are able to be effective at a safe distance. Ironically though, despite that, some still have iframe-SA rotation, the ability to stall and mitigate damage in a situation where they are not suppose to be that safe - i.e. being up front in melee. BDO allows these classes to have much more leniency, and barring the exception of a few cases, despite being range - there is really no concept of "aim" either. You just throw the skill in the other players general direction. 

All modes of the game should be taken into account, but not all modes are equal.  Especially if one of these modes is the *highlight* feature of the game. Please refer to the following figure.

https://imgur.com/eC4dHF0

A class being great in AoS is hardly a playable class if it is completely useless in every other aspect of the game. Being oppressive in one area and extremely weak in another is the definition of being unbalanced - this is not balanced. This becomes even more complicated when you have several ways to play the game.

Large scale siege/node war - uncapped and capped.
AoS - 3v3
GvG League - 15v15
RBF - 60 participants
Battle Arena - 1v1 

I don't need to explain to anyone who actually plays the game but reading off this list you can probably tell that some things are just more relevant than others. For instance, could you imagine a class that is god-tier 1v1, but is absolutely garbage when it comes to 1vX, large-scale, AoS, and even PvE. Do you think that is playable? Is being a "balanced" class means that the only content you are ever going to experience success in is challenging people to duels in battle arena. Sounds pretty shitty to me, borderline depressing.

You can have classes that excel in certain aspects of the game, but are at least serviceable in others. Being strong in a certain aspect of the game is fine - there is nothing wrong with that. The issues arises when it starts to shove other classes and specs out of a game mode and rendering them useless.

Which I then re-iterate the whole point of this thread, is whether range classes have too much agency in THIS game - of which your answer is very clearly a resounding no. However, you have yet to really provide much explanation why beyond conventional statements about range. I am going to agree with the OP at this point, range is out of pocket in BDO. The root cause of this may not even be damage - which you seem to be worried so much about, but it could also be other factors such as protection, kiting ability, stamina, scaling, class damage ratios, environment and so-on.

Listen, I am not against you - I just don't think we see things in the same way. That's okay, you do you. 

Its called kuno. And yes its depresing :D Joke aside PA admited that there is problem with currend system and they gona rework it. From my Pov as kuno and DK mostly, the dmg is very inconsistent. Its not ok a ranger to oneskill you thru your block. But then we have so much variables like SA, FG, DR, evasion and some of them just dont work below some stats and are unkillable after some stats. In general if you have strong ranged dmg you should die easy, have no protection. But when you have classes with AOE like stadium what we do?

Lets see what they come up with the changes. And hope for some balance.

Hi, archer 720+ gearscore full human + 1000+ accuracy in main build. 

The only way for me to give you a one-shot is for there to be a very big difference between our gear.

Don't compare the assassin classes with the shield ones even though they are Mele type. Valkyrie and Guardian as well as Warrior resist very well. The assassin classes  compensate with speed and iframe + invisible (kuno/ninja).

Let me clarify one thing, iframe cancels the damage, frontal block dmg(frontal (HP+DR), and SA (DR+EV) reduces dmg and you don't get additional effects. If you don't learn to use your class so that you can use these aspects, then you still have a lot to learn. Don't blame the class for getting beat, all classes are good if they are played at a higher level.

And regarding this post as a whole. The archer has a lot of dmg but needs straight surfaces in certain conditions to give a long combo, needs not to be interrupted, if caught (I take one-combo from 261 AP at 404DP). I'm a range, speed class, if I don't have dmg I don't exist. full cannon gameplay.Like other classes they have their advantages. Stop complaining that the archer from behind will beat you when you fight with another player, that's his role. Stop complaining that we kill in group fight, because we actually steal the last hit there and that's why we make score.

Because of you, those of you who don't study your class for a long time, choose instead to complain that you lose in front of experienced players, a lot of wrong updates are made.

I spent 4 years on this class, the only class played main and I still don't rise to the level of other players. Please stop using Pussy mode and play normally.

For 4 hours on this class you must know that archer and ranger can kite you very well and the the damage they have game is over for seconds. Well yea depends on skills and class ofc. But no way to tell me that its ok block from DK or kuno to be ok do be deleted in one skil with 400+ DP. I agree for i-frame but on assassin classes sometimes SA and block just dont work. And when you are out of stamina block is all you have. And vs good ranger or archer you often lose your stamina.
But the problem is not the dmg itself, its the problem that how stats in BDO work. And classes. There are too big aoes with too much dmg.

Succ rangers have reached the point where they can out-trade most non-rats in melee simply by dumping damage to the face, assuming the non-rats are built in standard DR (non cadries, like valks etc).

i think ranged dsamage classes should get penalty when shooting targets near them. :)