Since the release of Fallen Lilith and Smoke 4, they now have more diversity in terms of builds. However, at the end of the day, they are still mostly playing catch-up to other movement types, and the lack of any competitive B slot continues to be a problem.
I’m curious to see what you guys think about Ranged Fliers right now; I think they still require way too much to get going, but what do you think? 
very dependent on a good prf to be relevant due to a lack of inheritable options which locks most of them into the same build typing of
A: A/S boosting A (catch)
B: Trace
C: Rein/Hold/Menace
everyone wants to be duo Lyn
I mean, for Ranged Fliers all they really need now a days are Trace skills… sure it’d be nice if they got more but Traces are good enough as is.
As for how they are all togetherI… wouldn’t really know I hardly use any of them at all and the ones I do use are mearly for a specific role, Eir for 20 heal per turn, any of the dancers for obvious reasons (and since Flier dancers have the best overall mobility for dancers), Veronica with her refine, S.Byleth cuz it’s well she’s strong.
I don’t entirely agree
While Traces are superior to a lot of other ranged flier B slots, the sad fact is that they are less effective at using them than cavalry. Because ranged fliers will often use their entire two space movement just to get to a foe (or in the case of someone like S-Sonya, a warp) it ultimately adds up to only a little extra stats roughly 9 times out of 10, rendering the movement part worthless. I still think there is a lot of room for improvement here, because right now I’m way more inclined to give a Far Trace to a ranged cav than a ranged flier
Like I said, sure it’d be nice if they had better/more options, but Traces are far better than nearly every other options a Ranged Flier has to choose from atm hence why they are good enough as is, so until we do get more new skills Traces is the best they honestly have (unless the unit has a Prf B slot of course)
As Luna mentioned, Trace is better on Cavalries due to having 1 extra movement, which provides more flexibility for the Canto movement.
Speaking of roles, I think the rough part is that right now, there are not many roles for fliers right now; in the player phase, Cavs have higher range while Infantry has better skill access, and let’s not even bother with the enemy phase. The reason why I brought up this topic was because of Ascended Florina; I just can’t find a good role for her at all. 
I’m not denying that they are better on Cav’s, I’m just saying it’s one of the best options Ranged Fliers have when it comes to B skills when the unit doesn’t have a Prf B slot
Her use, as far as I can tell to is to run double Fury and let everyone jump across the map to her after a single attack without having to give up their B slot for Wings of Mercy
But I guess if you already have a super good WoM Galeforce team it’s probably useless
If you don’t have a strong or unique niche as a ranged flier, you’re dead on arrival.
Fliers entire advantage over the class is their mobility, support with rein + hold skills and utility with Guidance, Aerobatics and warp but it doesn’t help their combat which is more important in most modes. The +0 Canto remaining hurts them since unlike ranged cavs, they lack the extra reach over infantry nukes who have better skills and power.
Duo Dagr, Harmonic Sonya, A!Florina, L!Claude, H!Nowi, S!Tana, WF!Hinoka, Lynja and Spr!Veronica are the examples that stand out with what they got thanks to their prfs. The ones without prf or decent prf wish they gotten Dive Bomb or Flow skills to make up for it.
I don’t see why ranged fliers can’t got those skills.
But God help defensive ranged fliers. They got nothing. Offensive ranged nukes got Catch and Trace for good PP at least.
Like Bridal Sophia is the only ones I can think that isn’t screwed thanks their auto follow up prf but being weak to arrows along side no good B skills besides the rare Mystic Boost doesn’t help her.
In Aether Raids that’s almost impossible to do, with the only use being in Chaos season where she will have exactly 35 HP at the lowest (which 14 HP of recoil is exactly enough to get into the HP range for the weapon).
And yeah I don’t see how is this an improvement over simply using Ninja Lyn or Ninja Corrin.
Another elephant in the room for defensive ranged fliers is that they usually had to cede their A or Seal slot for Iote’s Shield, which is extremely unfortunate and made it even less enticing to use the class defensively.
Alternatively, you just give up those matchups and you automatically die to NY Dagr or Valentine’s Chrom, your choice.
You should know perfectly the state of ranged fliers
I prefer getting out of my circle sometimes just to see how the general people feel about this subject.
Taking a quick survey of my barracks and teams, it looks pretty much like “ranged flier” is completely incidental to the reason I use any unit that happens to be that. Ranged cavalry do the same thing but with better range, melee cavalry have basically the same range but get around Far Save, and ranged infantry have almost the same range but superior combat ability. The only ranged fliers I use are ones that have a specialty that has nothing to do with being a ranged flier, like Plumeria and L!Azura for dancing or Elimine and Flayn for drive DR.
Until Fatal Smoke came out, B!Claude was the only top-PvP-viable flying “tank” (more of a mixed-phase brawler, but whatever) and he was actually very strong. Maybe his refine will fix this problem, but I’m not very hopeful.
I think the major limitations are flier B skills. Melee fliers were also not used much, but they released the Flow skills that breathed life back into offensive ones, at least. Something that grants follow-ups and improved Iote’s (say with stats, or just combine both into a B slot) would go a long way for flying tanks. If they did something like Flow skills, they need to make them flier-specific instead of flier-and-cav, otherwise ranged cavalry will continue to outshine fliers.
I’ll let you know the state of ranged fliers for me when S!Laegjarn gets her refine. If it doesn’t include a Player Phase NFU they will be in the same state as the rest of Feh… Uninstalled.
I think Ranged Fliers will always “play catch-up” even if they would get access to more B skills like Flows, Lulls or Dive Bomb (the lack of more solid B skills is however their only true concern as of right now imo).
This is because Ranged units in general tend to be offensive PP units to fully make use of that extra range on initiation, and Flying units will always have less total BST because they get penalized for being able to move through all terrain. When you combine both qualities you end up with a class type with very low BST that have basically no room to EP/Mixed builds and even on full PP builds, more often than not, they pale in sheer damage output in comparison with other class types like Cavalry Ranged and Infantry Ranged. Access to Flows/Lulls or Dive Bomb could have made the odds even imo.
Not to say it’s a bad class-type, but they have room to grow. Even then, I wouldn’t say it’s the worst class-type of the game right now. I would give that award to Ranged Armors (yes, you read correctly).
Duo Chrom really did a number on every Far Save except B-Hector and A-Idunn…
Not only that, which is fairly true to begin with.
It’s also even more true when you realize that Ranged units (like said above) have less total BST and usually less statcked prf weapons. Meaning that at the end of the day, it’s more optimal to run a melee armor as a far saver than a ranged armor for that role. Just slap that Distant Stance on A or go with DD4 and you’re good to go.
And if you add on top of that the fact that they cannot equip DR specials, it seals the deal.
I don’t know about ranged armors being the worst class. That sounds like a little bit of a hyperbole. Even if VChrom is a problem, Far Save is so strong that you can stack so much support to somewhat deal with this weakness by running Svalinn Shield and probably not be punished.
As an archetype the worst is probably EP Cavs, but Ranged Fliers do come pretty close as the worst for me.
I feel like they just need more b skill options.
Yeah they’re very dependent on prfs but almost every class outside of maybe save units because at the end of the day all they have to do is live rather than focusing purely on killing so they can protect their PP units (though obviously prfs are important on everyone so 
.
B skill options for ranged fliers are just so non-existent that they end up being farther behind other weapon/move types, even if their prfs are fine or good.