Some views on DPS balance that everyone cares about

[Risvertasashi]

That's because what you're saying is incorrect.

Nothing I have said is incorrect and you went on a wild tangent. I never said SMN is dominant. Not that I'm saying it isn't either, but you're arguing your own made up point that was never in my post.

But to address your post anyways:

On a striking dummy, I can clear things in SSS on SMN that I can't on physical ranged. I play physical ranged a lot better than I play SMN, as I have far more practice on it. My overall DPS on SMN, even in this striking dummy scenario, is far far higher.

Yet SMN also brings the raid buffs, rez, and so forth. This isn't SMN "playing into the content."

This is summoner being brokenly overpowered and not having weaknesses to counterbalance its strength. Its DPS output would be fine if it did not have rez, did not give DPS buffs, and didn't have mobility. But then it would basically be black mage 2.

I wouldn't use world first as anything more than "they figured it out first".

Summoner and Bard had world first in E4s, and Summoner / Bard were world first on TEA too. If the logic is "world first so they're fine", 5.0 Summoner was "Fine" too.

Bard is great in TEA because of its AOE. Bard AOE is actually really, really good, but in high end content besides TEA, this doesn't matter so much.

As for e8s, well, the standards there aren't very high. Yes, they cleared with a bard. They could have done better with a Dancer or anything else. World first ultimate in Stormblood also had a DRK, but that doesn't mean DRK didn't have issues.

So, yeah, basically I agree. So many people on these forums do seem to think a sample size of 1 is a good basis for saying something is balanced, though...