The arms race between BLM and SMN

[JunseiKei]

Because they already do balance around it. They've admitted as much to us when people have asked why RDM in particular had such poor DPS compared to SMN and to a lesser extent BLM. It's also why BRD was nerfed recently when they got some of their raid utility back. Utility = lower damage numbers in this MMO sadly, or at least that's how the balance team tends to think it should work.

Well, that's a very silly stance for them to have. It's not like people raise from K.O. without weakness. After so many downs, you're just going to hit the fight's enrage. Hardly a great utility to call for a class's damage to be neutered.

[Enla]

Well, that's a very silly stance for them to have. It's not like people raise from K.O. without weakness. After so many downs, you're just going to hit the fight's enrage. Hardly a great utility to call for a class's damage to be neutered.

Oh believe me I agree, but that's very much sadly the official stance on the matter.

[Shurrikhan]

Oh believe me I agree, but that's very much sadly the official stance on the matter.

As official a stance as "There is no expectation for healers to do any damage." It was a play to a majority opinion rather than a comment on the actual state of the game. Raise tax had never been a thing for SMN in prior expansions (generally outperforming BLM rDPS until the end of each xpac) and certainly wasn't even for RDM as soon as they realized its macrorotational constraints made it produce considerably less damage than they first expected and buffed its potencies accordingly.

Whether it should or should not be taxed is an entirely separate question, but it's rare for any broad topic Yoshida has spoken on to actually match the designs his battle team is putting out. If Raise tax were a thing now, it would be for the very first time, and ranged jobs would also have needed to somehow be as punished just for having Troubadour/Tactician/Shield Samba as any caster was for Raise.

If the design team wishes to actually make a Raise tax, rather than just a "Happens to be BRD/MCH/DNC/RDM" tax, then they're of course free to do so, but it would be poor and unprecedented design. An advantage with only situational usefulness, and limited therein to already poorer runs, should only have a significant opportunity cost, not a passive one.

tl;dr: RDM and SMN's positions, just as for initially all but 4 jobs, were a result of simply poor tuning, not a "Raise tax". What afflicted those with Raise this expansion was not unique to them, nor has there ever previously been a Raise tax.