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As for the mage/warrior balance talk, I really don't think that warriors should be dealing the same amount of damage as mages. I mean, the whole classic difference between warrior/mage/rogue is that that mages are supposed to be glass cannons, warriors are supposed to be tankier, and rogues are kind of the "middle ground" between the two.

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I Overlord I said:
Warrior skills also cost considerably less SP (and obviously hit harder), so warriors will actually be better at nuking than mages (L-O-L) with the next engine update... :|

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I Overlord I said:
Rangers will still suffer, however, because most of them will have no choice but to have a significant investment in STR if they actually want to, you know, do damage.

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I Overlord I said:
potential method of bypassing this would be giving Neko a Werepyre-esque toggle; instead of using DEX + STR to determine damage, it would merely use DEX. Would also prevent any would-be abusers (namely, mages) from using spears at full capacity because the effect would be locked to a FD armor.

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i) The reason given for melee/ranged skills costing less than magic is because you're increasing raw turn output by 125% for magic (given they do 75% melee a turn), whereas it's only 100% with warrior/ranger. They both deal the same amount (200% melee). I've already tried to undermine that justification in a previous GBI back in January, but that's running on a tangent.

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ii) Mage will inevitably take a hit to their MP. However, they'll still have two spell's worth of MP so they'll still be able to use MP to nuke. Warriors, dealing more sustained damage, will still not have any access to mp.

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I don't see this as a problem.

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...couldn't work without caveats. Ranger isn't supposed to be dealing 100% melee to begin with.

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I Overlord I said:
Depending on whether or not there is a slight excess of mana, you might very well be unable to use Poelala and other such MP-consuming items if you want to get both spells' worth.

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I Overlord I said:
You should. "Blocking" (you know, seeing as monsters are so very accurate nowadays) and "Initiative" (Kaelin said you'd have a 50/50 chance with maxed DEX and LUK against a level-appropriate mob, so...) doesn't justify such a drastic loss in damage at all. Blocking hasn't been the meta since people ran Black Cat.

It briefly made a comeback after Roc Day, but that quickly lost its novelty. Outside of niche use against particularly slow, hard-hitting bosses, Roc Day (only useful once every four days anyway) doesn't exactly warrant revolving your entire build around.

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I Overlord I said:
But it's OK for Werepyres to be as accurate as Werewolves despite being completely lacking in the stat that grants you accuracy, agility, speed etc. in the real world? Hmm, alright.
Also, as 100% proc. rangers, they wouldn't be doing 100% anyway. They'd be doing 90%. What they actually deal with 0 STR right now is closer to 18% melee (20% melee with a non-100% proc). lol

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Except the same thing applies now with 4 spells. You don't have enough mana to cast all 4 if you spend it on mp-costing items/poelala. The difference is that effect is going to become more prevalent. You could combined the effect of mp-costing items for both battles into 1 spell (since they don't cost all that much). You'll feel it more because now it affects one of the only two spells you have. This is going to make MP regeneration much more important than it was previously.

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Meta =/= balance. Being honest, nothing can be done with DEX that is both balanced and meta unless it involves giving DEX some sort of nuke. Kaelin wants it to be defensive, so it's never going to be meta (you know, given the meta is FO nukes). With that settled, the argument then becomes whether or not those effects are balanced. We won't know that until we see the numbers. I'll be concerned if/when those numbers don't add up.

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With werepyre, you're essentially taking one stat (for accuracy) and replacing it with mainstat. Using this system, your point would stand provided
i) Adding mainstat would give additional damage
ii) You're substituting a stat which controls accuracy for a stat which doesn't.
Addressing the first point, attacks using INT/16 + STR/16 for damage. The base stat formula utilises STR/8 or INT*3/32. You would therefore assume that it's more powerful to use a magic weapon with hybrid stats. However, hybrid stats assume you have strength, and therefore it it optimal to use a melee weapon. As such, having magic weapons deal 100% melee is irrelevant because you won't get any extra damage - you should be dealing 100% melee a turn either way. In this regard, i) is not justified.
Addressing the second, DEX contributes DEX*3/40 (or 18.75bth). This means any stat that replaces DEX in this formula should also be able to add 18.75bth without the use of hybrid stats to keep things fair. INT currently offers 18.75bth as well (INT*3/40). Therefore, you're essentially replacing bth from one source with bth from a second. If this were LUK/END, you might have a because they offer no/less bth. However, mainstat offers the exact same amount. in essence, you're just transferring where you get that bth from, rather than giving a stat bth out of thin air.

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However, your argument is not the same thing. For this argument, I need to make a couple assumptions:
i) that blocking and initiative offsets the amount equivalent to 100% melee. This should be a given because A) that's what we've been told will happen and B) rangers will be inherently underpowered without that effect. We need to consider this hypothetical as "balanced" to test it
ii) 75% melee is the base. We usually compare everything to 100% melee for simplicity. For this argument, 75% must be the default. This is to demonstrate the benefit warriors get per turn as well as the unique effects available to ranger/mage. Again, this is required to test the hypothetical.

Base ranged attack should be at the default 75%. With the model Kaelin has proposed. STR + DEX would take things up to 100% melee. Why, because STR (as a benefit) should get that extra damage on all melee attacks. DEX should only equate to 75% because it's giving you additional "damage" through blocking and initiative. That means if you had 100% melee purely controlled by DEX, you'd be conjuring 25% melee damage out of thin air. That's the difference as to why werepyre works but your modifications don't.

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I Overlord I said:
Like you said, the effect will be more prevalent. Historically, you were able to make up for the "lost" cast by doing an autoattack or two with a damage-boosting misc. equipped. Doing so (meanwhile making sure you stay at or above enough MP for the remaining cast) will be much more difficult in the future, however. Thus, it might just be more practical to go warrior and not have to stress about conserving MP. Consistency is preferable, especially as that one cast also carries the danger of missing and leaving you in the lurch.

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I Overlord I said:
Yeah. Meta doesn't necessitate balance (oftentimes, it connotes the exact opposite, seeing as people like feeling "powerful"), but what it does do is act like a marker for what is or is not effective. When even most FD builds generally don't favor blocking, however, that in and of itself is rather telling. And apparently blocking will become even weaker, so...

All things considered, I do believe that DEX should remain offensive so as to retain a sense of consistency. INT and STR are naturally offensive as is CHA (the "new" main stat), so it only makes sense that DEX (supposedly a main stat or to-be main stat) should be the same. Especially as even LUK, the support stat, is offensive at heart. Instead of giving DEX a generic "nuke" or whatever, we have to find something that thematically fits. Such as a small innate chance to passively activate Celerity. Alternately, think: Tidus, from FFX. His "Haste" (obviously rooted in his notable Speed stat) ability allowed him to hit multiple times per turn. It's been years since I've played so I can't remember whether or not it carried a turn cost (for 2-3 turns of said status), but that could also be applied as a consequence of a direct in-built ability for people with > 0 DEX. Your DEX would naturally be rolled against the mob's to make sure you're not abusing it by "investing" 5 whole points into DEX.

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I Overlord I said:
i) applies because of the "free" points you received from not putting points into DEX like any other build, yet maintaining the same accuracy. Admittedly, this is not as much of a big deal now that every build (that isn't ranger) will have the same freedom when DEX is effectively neutered, but it was pretty cheap at the time. I've already covered why DEX's defensive capabilities are largely negligible and rendering its offensive capabilities moot just makes hybrids outright superior to pure builds. You know, since they don't have to "waste" points on DEX.

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I Overlord I said:
That being said, why is it that "regular" items that do the same are punished while this is not? Namely, weapons and spells that utilize CHA instead of INT. The damage and BtH in this case aren't pulled out of air either; rather, they are being transferred from CHA (now recognized as a main stat in its own right). Does that make sense to you?

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I Overlord I said:
OK, sure, I see what you're saying. Currently, the baseline with no STR is 20%. What is being proposed: buffing it up to 75% (+ Initiative) in exchange for nerfing DEX's role on accuracy (and presumably blocking). So far, so good.

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I Overlord I said:
The next part is where you lose me, though. If you're going to run STR + DEX anyway, who in their right mind would use spears or bows over melee weapons? After magic weapons, melee weapons have the best effects by far. In select cases, they're even better. FD users? Perhaps. Bows with the corresponding STR levels will outperform wands, but that alone can't offset the sheer versatility that mages have, given their expansive arsenal. Thus, any mage running DEX will never rely on bows (or spears, seeing as their weapons are superior) either. This leaves us with one very niche group of players who would actually enjoy running something like 250 DEX/250 LUK/250 END or 250 DEX/250 LUK/250 CHA so as to annoy their enemies to death. Whether turning the simplest of fights into a battle of attrition is worth 25% melee, you tell me. Unless you're a glutton for punishment, I would think not. Ergo, the "ranger" build would be even deader in the water than it already is. No es bueno.