Quote Originally Posted by Kokomi View Post
Please explain how being "ranged, melee, or having cast bars" should factor into job balance and why this is better than balancing based on difficulty.
They already factor into job balance in FFXIV. Physical ranged are penalized by a ranged tax and for having free mobility. Melee, excluding NIN who loses DPS for the utility brought, do more damage because they have to stay close to boss. BLM does more damage because it brings no utility and because of long casts (cast bars) is heavily punished by movement. Whether the methodology they currently employ is better than your alternative is a matter of opinion and one I care not to debate as our opinions clearly differ. However, at no time, to my recollection, did anybody say from SE say that a job will do less DPS because it's perceived to be less complex or difficult. This is something that was likely arbitrarily dreamed up by the community. Probably by people who seek validation because they presently play a perceived "difficult" class and an "easier" class shouldn't be able to pull of similar DPS numbers. I'll say this again though. Difficulty or complexity is subjective. Some people still hate RDM despite it being dubbed an "easy" class perhaps because they just don't like being rooted in place for any casts. RDM has received very little revision since inception. Did it ever occur to you that this supposed easy class doesn't receive many major changes because it might be the benchmark for all future class designs. It is my opinion that they believe they really nailed RDM. Anyway, something you find difficult may not be difficult to the next person. This extends outside of game and into real life. Some people are just better at performing certain kinds of tasks so what you find difficult they may find easy.