Is this what balance looks like?

A class being unpopular doesn't mean it isn't balanced, it means it's not popular. There could be other reasons, such as a class being inaccessible for new players. Especially if it's then compared to other, more iconic classes. If you want to talk about balance you look at what the class can do in terms of output and relevant utility. If you want to talk about popularity and what needs to be done to attract players to a class, that's a separate discussion that may include class balance but is not limited to it.

Especially as easy classes with good results and high popularity in pug settings are usually highly played as a whole.

That never bothered me that mch and smn were underplayed jobs during 3.x, because they were more complex that their counterparts. It's a bit sad they don't perform "more" (just a bit more) than their mutual counterparts, but it seems quite the case now on FFlogs so.. well it's cool.

Personally I think that BLM beign very difficult is a meme by now, the tools given over 2 expansions and especially SB really helped shore their weaknesses, Honestly SMN are much more harder to play effectively, also RDM and SMN have the utility card to deal with while BLM really don't have much (while also beign sturdier than other caster jobs)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tsumdere

snip

---

It's crazy that Summoner, probably one of the most favorite jobs in the Final Fantasy franchise, has so few people playing it. That shows me how truly screwed up it is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dianoia

It's crazy that Summoner, probably one of the most favorite jobs in the Final Fantasy franchise, has so few people playing it. That shows me how truly screwed up it is.

---

Every pet class meets this fate in mmos.

They aren't for everybody, especially with micro management.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil

Every pet class meets this fate in mmos.

They aren't for everybody, especially with micro management.

---

maybe it would be interesting for more people if the micro-management and pet-response would at least work fluently instead of this clunky bullshit with response-problems.... cds of pet skills are animation locked by there standard atks not even talking about Bahamuts 100y range which is completely useless because he follows you by every single step you do (avoiding aoes f.e.) repositioning hisself for NO FUCKING reason... but dps loss ^^'

All the DPS are roughly within 10% of each other. That's pretty damned balanced.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dianoia

It's crazy that Summoner, probably one of the most favorite jobs in the Final Fantasy franchise, has so few people playing it. That shows me how truly screwed up it is.

---

The implementation of Summoner is probably one of the worst things the development team has done.

It's like they knew people would have high expectations for what Summoner could be in an MMO because of Final Fantasy XI and they wanted to absolutely dash those expectations simply by being terrible.

1. Boring job weapon - grimoire. (Low visual impact)
2. Dots are boring. (Low visual impact)
3. Egis are boring. (Low visual impact)
4. Egis have poor AI.
5. Shackled to Aetherflow.
6. Interesting abilities come far, far, down the line.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Neela

maybe it would be interesting for more people if the micro-management and pet-response would at least work fluently instead of this clunky bullshit with response-problems.... cds of pet skills are animation locked by there standard atks not even talking about Bahamuts 100y range which is completely useless because he follows you by every single step you do (avoiding aoes f.e.) repositioning hisself for NO FUCKING reason... but dps loss ^^'

---

It was already stated he stops for nuking even during movement.

However, most pet classes have unresponsiveness in MMo's, that's part of the feeling "I'm only ordering it to act" which includes some sort of delay.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kwoon

You should not have to play near-flawlessly to be mediocre. You should not have to play flawlessly to stand out. Some classes are still clunky, over-punishing and just not that fun to play right now.
.

---

I feel like this is a massive problem for all the ARR jobs.
I think they focused too much on giving them drawbacks rather than making it fun and fluid to play.

I mean, just look at SAM and RDM vs DRG/Monk and BLM. You're focusing more on upkeeping these extremely punishing buffs rather than simply playing the job and having things flow naturally like with the new SB jobs and most of the HW jobs.