Interview: Face-to-Face with FFXIV's Naoki Yoshida - Article on MMORPG website

[Shurrikhan]

And if one build is deemed mathematically superior, you'll be called an idiot for attempting to deviate from it in any content that matters. We needs look no further than FFXI where certain jobs were outright blocked from parties due to their builds simply not measuring up comparatively.

For this to occur, the combat in the game has to be disturbingly as it would affect maximal to effective throughput, the other choices significantly underpowered, or that "build" has to be one you swap between on a fight by fight basis.

Mathematically superior builds often underperform due to the contexts of given fights. It is only when a generally strongest option is also given no effective weakness -- you know, that most obvious failure of balancing design -- that this becomes a technical issue, rather than just a product of oversimplification, misassumption, and bait for the officious and under-informed.