Multiple Job Roles Idea

[Ririta]

snip

So balance for scholar is homogenizing them into the same mediocre level as white mage and astrologian?

I didn't ask for white mage to keep getting nerfed over and over since 2.0; I didn't ask for astrologian to be on the same level as white mages instead of scholars. Why bring one job down instead of buffing the others? People like to DPS, let them. It amuses me how badly they've been ruining white mage since 2.1, but that wasn't possible with scholar, so they began crying on how arcanist is bad for balance, as if that wasn't a self-inflicted problem.

Scholars also have more spells to use in an AoE rotation: the 4 DOTs, Bane, Miasma II and Blizzard II. And in the single target rotation you forgot to add Energy Drain.
Speaking of MP efficiency, Blizzard II isn't exactly the most MP efficient spell for the damage it deals.

On summoner; I did raid FCoB, but as paladin. Why couldn't they rise the summoner's base piety? We've had just seen a base stat increase that tier (dragoons with their magic defense) so it could be done. And by the way, the summoner problem was self inflicted after the black mage over reaction in 2.3. A higher MP pool wouldn't make summoners be able to catch up to black mages.

Would you prefer being excluded from any difficult content? FFXI suffered notably from certain builds or sub-classes being deemed "trash" and people outright refusing to take them. Balance is what allows players to more freely choose the job they prefer and still complete everything. Yes, the meta comp exists but it's not to the point of exclusion.

You can have several jobs be viable without homogenizing them to the point where your choice is just aesthetics. What really matters is the encounter design, it can't commit the same mistake as Coil often did.