I know SE doesn't want to balance around fflogs, but rather around group dps. But at some point, they need to square with the reality of the way people are playing their game.

If Dragoon + piercing debuff is weak, then people will be reluctant to play BRD / MCH because they'll always feel gimped (thanks to fflogs) compared to groups with worse (overall) comps.

If Dragoon + piercing debuff is above the curve, you have the situation you have now where one out of four slots is dedicated solely to DRG, another slot to BRD or MCH because Refresh, and then in theory the other two slots are split across six dps.

That puts a lot of pressure on SE to avoid any other overpowered jobs (*cough* Ninja *cough*) or else you have five jobs fighting for one slot, if they can even fend off the other out of BRD or MCH.

And if Dragoon is balanced relative to other melee, then you have a situation where the BRDs/MCHs that care about their numbers are disinclined to join groups that don't have DRG (because fflogs). That'd get kind of ugly too.

I think optimally, you give RDM a piercing debuff (tied to a magic dmg self-buff so that they want to keep it up) on Impact or something. As part of a broader set of changes, obviously.

That way your comp setup is DRG/RDM + BRD/MCH + two out of the other five. And if the former four provided ~2-3% less overall rDPS or something, you would keep the latter two slots reserved for the stronger five.

This would be a little less flexible than SE maybe wants, but it'd be more plausible to balance than a nine job free-for-all, which is roughly what would happen if BRD/MCH could give their own debuff.