With a Geo present or a Blm MBing off of a Sam, nuking is actually pretty strong. They've always seemed overly cautious when it comes to boosting magic damage, so they might still be holding to a "wait and see" pattern.

For reference, an Idris Geo using Malaise gives -44 MDB, which makes nukes hit for almost 2.5x as much. Acumen also gives +55 MAB.