Balance is ok? right now, it may seem awful but it hasn't been the best for a while the check in p8s fight just let a lot of people see the differences, While yes Reaper, RDM and certainly machinist are struggling right now, the balance isn't as bad as it seems, pretty much all jobs are viable in all forms of content, Red mage is actually still pretty decent for what it is of course it could do with some extra damage, I wouldn't discourage you from playing it because I'm sure it would be fine if you took it into harder content, keep in mind RDM in it's current state shouldn't perform as well as some other DPS jobs, but it should be doing around the same as summoner if not more.

Personally im fine with the current state also worried about my main job PLD being changed in the wrong ways but at this point we will wait and see.