Clarification for WHM regarding upper tier Banish spells.

[Alhanelem]

Not if you count melee....

I specifically excluded melee (which isn't defective), but it's also silly that you don't really end up using your magic other than haste.

Whm is not an offensive caster. If soloing it would be silly to use MP on banish nukes anyway

It would only be silly becuase the spells are crippled, which they shouldn't be. They're already less MP and cast delay efficient, they don't also need to be statistically inferior.

Virtually all MMOs provide healer classes with a limited selection of offensive abilities for the sake of soloing and for the sake of "I may as well do something since I don't need to heal anybody right now." FFXI is the only one I've played that doesn't. Even most single player FF games gave white mages more powerful attack magic spells than this.

No one said WHM is supposed to be a DPS and that's not what this is about, but WHM is one of the worst classes to have to solo with, and DPS trusts for the most part are rather weak. Their strength in this area can be improved without them suddenly becoming the hot new DD class. If white mage monsters can cast these spells, then white mage players should too.

At any other time other than soloing, whm would be using healing magic... so why does this matter?

It matters for the exact reason you said: soloing. How do most people get their CAP? By soloing.