Dear SE, stop homogenizing jobs

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I would argue that it is not fun playing a job unwanted in raid because other jobs perform the role better. (War in 2.0, PLD in 3.x, Whm in 3.3+, all of 4.x, SAM in 4.x and 5.0, MCH in 4.x)

Also, jobs have not been homogenized. Roles have. Jobs within a role have to be able to perform the same in certain circumstances or you could be in an instance set up for failure because a certain job isn't there.

[Shurrikhan]

I would argue that it is not fun playing a job unwanted in raid because other jobs perform the role better. (War in 2.0, PLD in 3.x, Whm in 3.3+, all of 4.x, SAM in 4.x and 5.0, MCH in 4.x)

Also, jobs have not been homogenized. Roles have. Jobs within a role have to be able to perform the same in certain circumstances or you could be in an instance set up for failure because a certain job isn't there.

Roles being homogenized = being a DAMAGE-DEALER is the same as being a TANK which is the same as being a HEALER.

That's not quite the case. Even by the most subjective stretch, it's not newly the case.

Healers have mostly been damage-bots with a side of healing since HW, and that trend has deepened only by very mild increments. Tanks, likewise, have largely been "blue DPS" since ARR. DPS having CC responsibilities largely stopped at level 49, apart from select early 50 dungeons, if not earlier, leaving them with mostly just the exact same concerns as the other two roles, but with more complexity in maximizing that long-term output.

On the other hand, jobs have been more severely homogenized across a given role in recent times. There's a very clear difference in the steps between ARR and HW, HW and SB, and now finally SB and ShB, in terms of job diversity within their given role.

[Apopopo]

I would argue that it is not fun playing a job unwanted in raid because other jobs perform the role better. (War in 2.0, PLD in 3.x, Whm in 3.3+, all of 4.x, SAM in 4.x and 5.0, MCH in 4.x)

Also, jobs have not been homogenized. Roles have. Jobs within a role have to be able to perform the same in certain circumstances or you could be in an instance set up for failure because a certain job isn't there.

war got fixed relatively early in 2.x, so that ones null, pld had incredibly meta situations where it was useful, ie cover shenanigans which let you completely bypass some mechanics, so it was most definitely still used in 3.x, the only reason people memed was because block didn't work on magic yet. whm was world first for both ucob and uwu, idk what you're talking about bro, it was definitely still used and fine, sam was perfectly fine in 4.x it was even used for world first bcob, mch was actually also preferred over brd for speedkills due to its personal dps.

tl;dr: you're wrong, just because a job isn't the best doesn't mean it's not usable in content, your argument has zero ground and is the reason we're stuck in an over homogenized environment where jobs lose more and more of what made them unique every expansion.