Elemental Magic Adjustments Continued

[Motenten]

DD has higher Defense + HP and optional ability to wear higher -pdt gear compared to blackmage or any mage so to say that no DD of any sort can not survive without utsusemi in such cases is hard to compare the difference between mages and dd being that gear options are not the same.

A rather aggressive run-on sentence, there.

PDT for Blm: Earth Staff, Twilight Torque, Goliard Trews, 2x Dark Rings, Umbra Cape, Plumb Boots: 51% PDT, capped at 50%, same as the best any other DD can get. Plus the advantage that you can use your max PDT set in between casts, while it's impractical for melee to use max PDT sets only in between melee swings.

Raising the cost of Thunder and Ice, Of course people are going to use these spells often as we have raised our merit points into these elements.

Then perhaps you'd consider readjusting your merits to account for the new options. Seidr plus Earth Potency merits would give about 2.5 times the MP efficiency as Thunder spells (3x if it's vs Thunder using Bokwus rank 15), not even counting the extreme examples of first tier Stone or Stonega.

.. without depending on other jobs to help us ..

The only way to get the truly ridiculous potential damage output for melees is with the help of others -- whm, brd, cor, geo, drg, smn, sch, etc. To see what potential any nuking job can reach, it must be considered within the framework of help from others. Solo play for -any- job is a mix of compromises and applying some niche trick the job has. If your niche trick doesn't work (eg: Utsusemi vs Iron Giants), then soloing a difficult target won't be practical.

Very little about this game is balanced around solo play. At best, certain limitations are put in place to keep solo play from becoming too dominant. Your complaints are presented as if they were universal issues, but are only argued from the viewpoint of a soloist. Yes, soloing a lot of the new mobs is difficult. Have you tried soloing any of those mobs as a melee? It's not very easy there, either.

You also seem overly-focused on Thunder-class nukes. I have Thunder V beating Stone V in damage by a mere 4.5%, whereas it costs twice as much MP. You use Thunder spells if you have MP to burn, if you need only the absolute most powerful nuke available, or if you need to nuke a specific weakness. You don't use it for long-term, total damage output.

This is in direct conflict with years of use, where Thunder spells were ~40% more powerful than the Stone line while costing only ~30% more MP, and it's not surprising that many people won't "get it" after the update. You need to completely revamp your approach before you can really assess where the real weaknesses of the new system may be.