Either SMN and RDM should lose their Raise or BLM should get a Raise.

[EllieShadeflare]

The caster role is off-balance. Two out of three of the jobs have access to Raise, an extremely useful progression tool. One of them does not. Which do you think will be shunned? Lore is important and lore can be reinvented, not sure where you get the idea that things haven't changed since FFIII, there have been tons of additions and changes and re-imaginings since then. This franchise is the literal definition of recycling/reimagining concepts and ideas.

The caster role is off balance not because of the lack of Raise on Black Mage, it's because of the status of Red Mage and Black Mage in terms of balance. Black Mage is a pure DPS class that can't DPS with its current meta and Red Mage is a low-effort, low-potential DPS with terrible support (beyond the questionable usage of rez-battery which becomes useless after learning). As for the claim of "things having not changed since FFIII", well... they really haven't. Part of the magic of Final Fantasy is that even things are different, they remain quite similar, with each class keeping its roles and mechanics throughout the series. It's why Red Mage has the lore of being both Black and White Magic and has a Cure and Rez on top of its DPS mechanics. It's why people wild-mass guess that Astrologian is Time Mage but renamed, since there's a few call signs of the class (most notably, Gravity and the seemingly time and space based mechanics of the job on top of it having more support than its other counterparts). It's why Black Mage, no matter how many times they've been reworked, have ended up just focussing on explosions, infernos, blizzards and very frightening thunderbolts and lightning. Reimagining does happen, but for specific "core" classes, it's not a good idea to reinvent the wheel.

Please, tell me some more that I "don't understand" the class. I understand perfectly well that no matter how much damage it does (within reasonable balance), the other two jobs will still be significantly stronger for progression. Call it "a crutch" all you want, I don't even care anymore, it's a crutch that every party benefits significantly from, which translates directly into shunning BLM. In case you missed the memo, they stopped "intense damage checks" after Gordias, save for ultimate, and exactly TWO BLMs have cleared unending coil.

Well, it sounds like you don't, because you don't seem to understand the real issues with Black Mage. Black Mage doesn't need, as you have called it, a crutch. What they need is work on the class to actually make its damage viable but the thing that makes this class viability come into check is A. the flat out nerf since 3.55 (Seriously, the loss of Raging Strikes and the 20 potency of Fire IV really hurt HARD (especially when you understand how Astral Fire adds damage, this is actually almost a 40 potency difference)) and B. its mechanics get in the way of its damage.

Enochian has always been a clunky mechanic for BLM to manage, but to make it fair for the Dev team, they fixed half of the problem by making it only part of the Astral Fire/Umbral Ice mechanic in terms of duration. The problem now, is Fire IV being as slow as it is AND not counting to Astral Fire. I cannot in good faith accept Fire IV having such a stingy cast time, whether it be in 3.x or in 4.x since it directly hampers the ability to maintain Enochian. Back in 3.x, the clunkiness had to do with the stringent timers that could never be fully refreshed, the duration constantly degenerating with each cast of Blizzard IV. Thankfully, that's gone but in its place, we now have Foul, which is essentially the same problem as old Enochian. Fire IV's slow cast time already was a poor fit for the class in 3.x, but at least it didn't end without having Astral Fire or Umbral Ice up. Here? There's a very real chance that your attempt to keep your damage will actually make you lose both Enochian AND Foul, and it's ESPECIALLY painful when losing it in your opener, since it's still on cooldown. This became my biggest issue with Black Mage in Savage, since OS3 does a very darn good job showcasing that the ARR rotation is a player's best bet at maintaining Enochian and keeping damage decent in a mobility heavy situation because of just how clunky Fire IV is in our rotation. Heck, you'll even be better at maintaining Thundercloud and Firestarter, so it's almost like Fire IV is a waste of space if you have to move heavily, and this may require more experimentation.

But in the end, the clunkiness and the immobility of Black Mage is what kills it. You need to dedicate some resources to make Black Mage viable; shields to bypass damage, causing inflexibility in terms of mechanics due to immobility, and trying to work around their tunnel vision. A Samurai is good at being pure damage because they don't get forced into tunnel vision just to keep their damage. A Black Mage cannot handle mechanics, especially random ones due to its inability to move without sacrificing around 150 potency per cast just to maintain their class mechanics, assuming no Firestarter. This is what causes Black Mages so much ire, and this is what damned Black Mage for Ultimate. In fact! I challenge you! Find how many RED MAGES completed Ultimate. You'll find Hydaelyn knows how many Summoners, yes, but the reason why THEY'RE there is because their damage is far higher than Black Mage's, to the point that they beat out Samurai in parses. In fact, the one Black Mage clear recorded on FFlogs ranks far higher, completion time wise, than any Red Mage on that list, with the static Pandoras Box ranking 11, with the highest rank Red Mage being Unreal at rank 23. Links below for citations. The only reason TO take Red Mage would be for pure progression, since Bahamut is indeed going to be DPS oriented.

https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/17# for proof of how well Summoners parse (and why they'd outmatch Black Mage for using in raids at the moment).

https://www.fflogs.com/rankings/19#boss=1039 for Bahamut clears and the ranks that I've stated.

Oh and by the way, fun fact: OS3 does have at least 4 DPS checks, each in the form of adds: White Flame, Great Dragon, Apanda and Iron Giant + Ninjas. Not killing any of them in time essentially count as soft enrages, which more than counts as a DPS check.

If you don't raid at progression levels, then this issue basically doesn't even concern you, to be blunt. You're not the one who will be forced to play another job because of the imbalance of the role.

Hi! Black Mage in learning/progression party. Our trouble isn't that we need rezes, our trouble is simply us learning. What WOULD make a Black Mage unwanted is if they're unskilled because a large chunk of mechanics in the raids will mess up an inexperienced player, much less a tunnel visioned Black Mage that hasn't put things into muscle memory. Deltascape 3.0 Savage will ESPECIALLY mess up a new Black Mage due to the mechanics being RANDOM, particularly Library Spellblade Holy, Place Dark Token, Mindjack, and worse. Obviously, a rez battery will HELP, but while a Black Mage might not be able to stop DPS checks, they can certainly end a boss quickly... if they worked as intended.