So after waiting for about 2 weeks to see the consequence of homogenization

[TcomJ]

This is an unfortunate aspect of MMOs. The more jobs that get added, the harder it is for them all to have unique buffs and utility while still being balanced with each other.

Having a situation like Stormblood where groups pretty much always wanted a bard and dragoon for their utility over other DPS of their role is problematic and becomes increasingly more so the more jobs that are added.

Should bard utility still be at Stormblood level where they're almost always the physical ranged of choice? What then would be the point of machinist and dancer?

The party buffs are probably the least interesting part of jobs anyway. It's either a long cooldown you use once every 2-3 minutes like Devotion or it's just something that's a passive part of your rotation like bard songs were in Stormblood. Ultimately, the uniqueness of each job should be in how it plays, not so much in what buff it brings to the party.

I do think part of the problem is the insistence on very tight DPS requirements for raid fights that it pushes people into optimizing everything about their group and moving away from every fight being a DPS check fight would allow for a bit more room. Hard for a red mage to get much benefit out of their raise when the reduced damage from the death might cause a wipe anyway.

For MCH main, party buffs are not interesting then don't have it for MCH as you like MCH for that. For many bard players and DNC players they are interesting.

And I don't know what MMO you play where the more jobs they add, the homogenization becomes prominient and job identities fade away.

Ragnarok for example has no problem of that whatsoever. They never have to rework or remove abilities from old jobs and the more new job they add, the more unique and weird they get.


Right now, the only buff people can think of is damage buff in this game that's relevant. Hence, such is the reason why there can be no other kind of buff. We removed TP, though as convenient for some jobs and abilities spamming, there is now less factors for buff to occurs.

The more resource you remove, the less flexibility of stats manipulation and interactions you get.

The game is designed to rely heavily on 1-2 character stats, and buffing any other stats such as say sks for mnk or mch is/was a no no.

But say Ragnarok, you can buff elemental attack, you can buff TP, you can buff agi, str, vit, int, debuff this and that, cast speed, sks, luck all across the board. Even elemental combo is such a thing.
That creates depth and exploration and the emphasis of meta doesn't rely on a few jobs but diversify and spread across the jobs and stats.

And now we have what we call inflation of DPS number and discrimination of meta based on DPS number. Because we remove all these factors, in the end people discriminate the only thing that only matter, DPS.

Even Ragnarok introduces Bard and then Dancer, they never have removed bard abilities for dancers.