SE are leaving BLM to rot by giving SMN and RDM even more utility

[waifugenerator]

Nah /10char

[Kabooa]

Feel like I should mention the endwalker SMN shield is a (sizeable) nerf over the one they have right now. 20% of the summoner's hp instead of 30%.

But, what, did you only just now notice it had one?

It's an ability instead of a GCD that required you to swap to Titan. Not exactly a "Sizeable" nerf.

[Gruntler]

SMN can now move close to 100% of the time without DPS loss, even without having Ruin 2 for movement.

Ruin 2 won't do that any more, and they're getting a hard static casting phase.

[Archwizard]

I feel like the OP's misunderstanding what's going on here.

Let's take a quick look at Astrologian: AST has objectively weaker filler damage skills than other healers. It makes up for this by use of its cards to provide damage buffs to the team, particularly to one target at a time. While the AST has a lower damage output on its own, this isn't a penalty to parties with them; in fact, it's a boost since it reduces negligible healer damage by X% to increase some dedicated DPS' by X%.
Make sense?

In the same vein, Summoner and Red Mage are intended to have a higher support threshold than Black Mage, but that utility comes at a cost to their damage compared to BLM. Not by an ungodly amount that invalidates having any job other than BLM -- but in intent at least, by a notable amount to make up the gap.

Why doesn't BLM get buffs? Because with all of these jobs that output buffs at the cost of their own damage output, someone needs to actually be the target of AST's cards, Dance Partner, Dragon Sight, and so on.
BLM, SAM and MCH are the biggest choices in this for their respective roles, and not incidentally, the ones with the least supportive skills in their roles. That is their raid utility: they're the damage mules.

Now, from a sheer balance standpoint, is it unfair for BLM to be the only caster without a Raise? ... Not really! In progression content, most of the time Raises go unused; if someone dies, the damage loss from Brink of Death is already too high to succeed. Raise is largely a benefit for casual or farm content; there is no middle-ground content where arguing over a 5% difference in personal damage weighs evenly with inflicting a -50% damage penalty on another DPS.
Besides, the argument of "Either all casters should have a Raise or none of them" is a slippery slope. If all casters had a raise, why not all ranged? If all ranged DPS had a raise, why not all DPS? On the flipside, if none of the DPS should have one because it's pointless for progression, why should healers?

At the end of it all, Raise access is nice for casual content and sets some jobs apart from others.

[zcrash970]

Black mage does have utility. It's call BDD.

Big D*** DPS

[Grimoire-M]

It's an ability instead of a GCD that required you to swap to Titan. Not exactly a "Sizeable" nerf.

To be fair, that's exactly where it was when EAs were still oGCD in 5.0, including shield amount, so it's still a nerf from that iteration by virtue of the cooldown differences.

That said, BLM got a lot of good QoL so I'm surprised anyone's upset about that. Aspect Mastery from level 1 and targetted Blizzard II alone is going to make it so much better to play in ARR.

[Jirah]

Leaving something to rot is like giving a job a boring GCD and no added QOL while it’s cousins get new mechanics and abilities and triats, and I think BLM isn’t the job they are letting rot.

[Orbus]

SMN has currently an 80% buff to their raidwide damage buff
RDM has a ~30-40% increase to theirs.
SMN then gets a free to use Manaward, TWICE. ON HALF THE COOLDOWN. WHAT?
SMN can now move close to 100% of the time without DPS loss, even without having Ruin 2 for movement.
RDM now has a damage reduction AND healing increase cooldown

What does BLM get?

The highest damage.

[Vivix]

You can't complain about what these jobs have gained if you don't compare it to the changes they received. I don't even want to play SMN due to the changes anymore. It's like a completely different job.

[RocciaSolida]

Imagine complaining about the most well designed job in the whole game.
Yes, BLM is not suited for prog but not every job is supposed to be and even then, you CAN prog with a BLM.