Quote Originally Posted by Myon88 View Post
snip
Very well said overall. You make many good points here but I think what's worth highlighting here is that this whole discussion is an issue for casters only.

Trying to cross over and say that the balance for ranged and melee is being affected by having two very strong casters right now is completely missing the point that there's no restriction or rule saying that you can't have two casters in a party. This community is obsessed with having two melee because we like having our 4/4 melee/range distances, but there's no reason that any of those roles who can perform at a distance can't do that same thing at close range. This is why trying to nerf one particular class within a role to make the other roles viable is an exercise in failure, essentially creating more imbalance within one role while also adding additional imbalance to the other roles by singling out a clear favorite. If people are wanting to complain about the current state of ranged dps, then take a look back at how the functional use of that role has been dismantled up and to this point by removing MP and TP resources from this game and investigate how the role can be given more tools than just their 1% stat contribution to be an asset to a party.

The reason that this whole thread exists is because of the misalignment in utility for casters that has shifted this community's perception on how parties should be structured. Because only 2/3 casters have a raise and the community thinks that only one caster should be in a party, we're left with this never-ending holy war between Black Mages and Summoners while Red Mage tags along behind because people think there must be only one caster in the party. Party composition should always come down to what utility is relevant to the fight and for all progression, raise is the one utility that practically demands a spot because of how much it accelerates progression, yet that does not affect how groups can balance out the additional spots for utility. A Black Mage joining a raise caster could be quite useful for their very high damage and additional Addle for magic damage but you could also bring two raise casters to vastly increase the chance of extending pulls for progression at the expense of a lot of damage. It's worth noting here again that this additional utility has been dismantled from the game in Shadowbringers even further as Apoc and Palisade were very good abilities that were removed, thus the focus goes even harder on raise as it still exists as such a powerful asset on a limited number of jobs.