Please reconsider stance on blue mage

[Dwill]

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When FFXI came out, there wasn't that many game with an EQ'esque PvE out there. And I said the first Final Fantasy MMO so of course that drove hype so I don't know why you even bring 1.0 in this.

White mages according to that census were the most played yet most White Mage and Red Mage I knew were doing it out of need, not out of fun. That data, while nice, is to be taken with a grain of salt. Samurai were extremely popular with Monks in end game, something that this census isn't taking into consideration. If you were a main Summoners or a Dragoon( and even Dark Knight to a degree) before the introduction of Hasso, you were not wanted. They were too much of a hassle to deal with and it was easier to just stack monks, samurai and warriors for DDs.

Whether you want to believe it or not, balance is one of the most important point nowadays if you a healthy MMO. If you want to believe otherwise and live in denial, be my guest.

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Your talking about one encounter (Garuda EX) versus years of discrimination. Not even comparable. It wasn't fun for them to be the laughing stock of the endgame community (I was a Samurai by the way so you can't say that I have a grudge) because they had fun with the playstyle that Square Enix introduced but that they couldn't balanced worth a damn.

What you call "sameness", I call balance. The goal of balance is to be able to achieve the same result using different jobs:

Tanks:

• Paladins are less prone to spike damage, more mitigation tool, less damage, unlimited amount of stuns. Can Main tank and Off tank with ease.
• Warriors have a bigger HP pool, gets healed for more, more damage, unique resource system. Can Main tank and Off tank with ease.

Healers:

• White Mage: More focused toward raw healing than damage prevention.
• Scholar: More focused toward damage prevention than raw healing.

Ranged DPS:

• Black Mage: Caster that is more focused toward nukes and bursts, outstanding at AoE, unique resource system.
• Summoners: Caster that is more focused toward DoTs and constant steady output, uses a pet, hardly penalized by movement.
• Bards: Ranged damage dealers that uses TP instead of MP, great support abilities, amazing burst, not penalized by movement whatsoever.

Melee DPS:

• Monk: Uses a unique stance mechanics to deal its damage, extremely good single target damage, decent utility via Mantra.
• Dragoons: Uses the ever so popular Jumps, pretty good balance of single target and AoE damage, good gap closers.

It's the difference in playstyle and job mechanics that makes this game actually pretty well balanced. So of course, if it's balanced, the end result will be the same when people press their buttons. Tanks will tank, DPS will DPS and healers will heal so in the end, the only things that changes is how you achieve the results you want.