So about Summoner...

[Capn_Goggles]

A few classes aren't "always useful". BLM isn't "useful" and I don't hear them complaining much since their buffs, WHM isn't always "useful" and many people considered the balance between healers to be pretty good until these last AST buffs that happened (despite the fact that WHM was only taken for prog).

You're arguing a non-point however because "useful" is a nebulous non-statement toward overall job performance. Black Mage is useful, but it's outclassed and difficult to play, regardless its playerbase still has plenty of criticism about the job design and overall performance. White Mage is in a precarious position due to the low number of healers and even lower number of healer slots, but it was only marginally outclassed in higher end content prior to the latest patch, but this is a much more nuanced argument than the balance between DPS jobs which are more numerous both in available positions and in sheer volume of jobs.

Red Mage is useful in progression, but becomes entirely useless outside of it because its one piece of utility serves no purpose and it offers nothing outside of that.

[xxPheNoMeNa]

Red Mage is useful in progression, but becomes entirely useless outside of it because its one piece of utility serves no purpose and it offers nothing outside of that.

Useless for what though? Speedrunning? Sure it's not useful there because that dps disparity actually matters. But it's still a dps class that can still compete with other dps classes (non casters) in terms of personal damage and it has embolden which averages out to nearly 6% over its duration (actually in a way it can be argued to be "stronger" due to how it's diminishing effect works, as you'd be aligning the majority of your burst damage during it's 10%/8%/6% windows). I know it only affects physical damage to the rest of the party, but optimal raid comps are mostly physical anyways so you still get good value out of it if you align it properly

This perception of RDM being "useless" is just weird. And frankly, even if they did buff the class, unless it does become meta people will continue to have this perception of RDM only being a prog job

[Capn_Goggles]

This perception of RDM being "useless" is just weird. And frankly, even if they did buff the class, unless it does become meta people will continue to have this perception of RDM only being a prog job

Of course people will still have the perception of it being a prog job, the important thing is that it would be a perception rather than something enforced by the actual job design, and part of that involves giving Red Mage something to offer that isn't spamming resurrection spells. Embolden is a complete joke, and the reason I didn't include it in the discussion is because it provides such a minimal increase in rdps even when used to its absolute best effect.

[xxPheNoMeNa]

Of course people will still have the perception of it being a prog job, the important thing is that it would be a perception rather than something enforced by the actual job design, and part of that involves giving Red Mage something to offer that isn't spamming resurrection spells. .

It's only a perception now. This isn't gordias, content is not tuned to the point where your composition REALLY matters. Any reason why RDM is not played right now is that perception. And buffing the class will honestly not change that, it will just "enforce" that RDM is THE class to take for prog because it will be even better and then will be disregarded afterwards because everyone circle jerks our speedrun meta.

Embolden is a complete joke, and the reason I didn't include it in the discussion is because it provides such a minimal increase in rdps even when used to its absolute best effect

Embolden is easily 400-500 rDPS with proper alignment, which is comparable to pretty much every individual raid buff in the game aside from Trick Attack or the rng of Balance cards. Hypercharge, Brotherhood, Chain Strategem, Battle Litany, etc., Embolden offers about the same (or close to) rDPS as any one of these buffs. In what world is that a "complete joke"?

[Wilbow]

Embolden is easily 400-500 rDPS with proper alignment, which is comparable to pretty much every individual raid buff in the game aside from Trick Attack

...And THERE YOU GO. RDM does NIN level pDPS while providing considerably less rDPS (trick is 600 DPS unoptimized, up to 900 DPS optimized). Never mind that NIN can use its enmity reduction tools alongside shirk to squeeze out even more DPS from the tanks by making them avoid using their emnity combos and generally makes content much less stressful to deal with.

I can do a similar analysis with BRD, or DRG, or MNK, or SMN, or BLK...

But muh verraise, right?

You're fighting a losing argument on this. The numbers aren't on your side. I'm sorry.

[xxPheNoMeNa]

...And THERE YOU GO. RDM does NIN level pDPS while providing considerably less rDPS (trick is 600 DPS unoptimized, up to 900 DPS optimized). Never mind that NIN can use its enmity reduction tools alongside shirk to squeeze out even more DPS from the tanks by making them avoid using their emnity combos and generally makes content much less stressful to deal with.

But muh verraise, right?

You can try to be cute and say "the numbers aren't on your side" but the problem here is those numbers don't matter to begin with (and I know what the numbers are for every class in this game). That DPS disparity literally means nothing because RDM is a niche DPS class with a quasi-healer element. You and the people arguing here just fail to see this. It's not really a losing argument when (what a news flash) RDM has still been unchanged for an entire year while these complaints have been ongoing for sometime. So when the next balance patch happens and RDM STILL doesn't see any changes, what will the argument be then?

[Wilbow]

So when the next balance patch happens and RDM STILL doesn't see any changes, what will the argument be then?

The same as they were last patch? That tends to happen when you don't fix something.

If you remember, RDM was one of the highest DPS a year ago. Most DPS have received noticeable buffs since then (practically all, really), and it's caused RDM to be shoved down to the bottom by proxy.

The lack of DPS wasn't an issue before. Now it is.

[Capn_Goggles]

You can try to be cute and say "the numbers aren't on your side" but the problem here is those numbers don't matter to begin with.

Oh, well there we have it I guess, the numbers don't matter. So it wouldn't matter if Black Mage did as much damage as Ninja and nothing else changed, right? Naturally, because DPS numbers don't matter, it wouldn't be a big deal if Dragoon could deal the exact same personal DPS as Samurai.

Perhaps there's some sort of middle ground between 1% parsers and people who only log in to idle in Limsa where job balance can be important without necessarily requiring absolute parity.

[Kabooa]

I know it only affects physical damage to the rest of the party, but optimal raid comps are mostly physical anyways so you still get good value out of it if you align it properly

This is the part that gets me.

It's a caster that you wouldn't want in magic based set ups if they ever existed since part of its damage is physical and it buffs Physical classes. By this same token, in strong physical set ups you still don't want it because there's better physical support / supported jobs as well.

Verraise is a pretty awful string to dangle why. Why not make them desirable, both to play and team up with, on other merits?

[xxPheNoMeNa]

This is the part that gets me.
Verraise is a pretty awful string to dangle why. Why not make them desirable, both to play and team up with, on other merits?

In what way should it be desirable though? It's already desirable for prog, for it to be "desirable" after that it would need to be strong enough to be meta or close to it (and making it that strong with it's verraise utility untouched would actually destroy the balance of casters). And if it's not strong enough to be meta (or in the position SMN is in right now), it won't ever be desirable after prog because the community as a whole will continue to believe that our level of optimization applies to them and they'll copy it (and this cycle will repeat).