Quote Originally Posted by Hyrist View Post
Besides, it looks as if the developers were more interested in taking some of the AoE power away from the mages as a whole, and distribute it among everyone.
They really only lowered SMN's AoE / Fire 2 potency and buffed BLM's AoE with Thunder AoE, multiple Flares in a row thanks to Umbral Hearts / triple swiftcast, and Foul. I don't see it as a thematic trend when all they did was take away SMN's birthday presents and give them to BLM.