Let's redefine "damage taxes"

[Rithy255]

This is pretty much how I feel as well. RDM also gets a barrier that shields the group against magic damage (i.e. raidwides), while SMN gets nothing like this unless you count addle, which every caster gets as a role action anyway. I'm not sure why you aren't including this under utility, but I do and so do most people when they talk about this kind of thing.

Basically, I'm just tired. I agree that RDM could use some love, but the people talking about doing more dps than smn "bcuz its ez" clearly just want their job to be on top and don't actually care about a balanced game.

Summoner gets way more mobility, a Party regen and a strong targeted party member regen, I think that more then makes up for magick barrier personally, I generally think they should let rdm be ahead of summoner or you could buff its utility enough to justify being behind Summoner.

[Avoidy]

Summoner gets a Party regen and a strong targeted party member regen, I think that more then makes up for magick barrier personally,

No it doesn't, because the Phoenix regen isn't an on-demand heal over time. You get it when you summon Phoenix, which you'd do as soon as it's available because that's how your rotation flows on SMN, not because of outgoing party damage. Magick Barrier is on demand damage mitigation that you can plan for and use whenever you want as long as it's not on CD. A vast majority of the time when I use phoenix, its party heal goes out to a group that's already topped off because phoenix didn't line up with any outgoing party damage and holding phoenix excessively to wait for damage to occur is wildly sub-optimal and pointless. If magicked barrier were like smn regen, you'd be forced to use it the second it came off cd, whether there was damage incoming or not. You would have zero actual agency over when it went out, and most of the time it would accomplish nothing.

This comparison is honestly so inaccurate, and it's what I meant by bad faith arguments earlier. Even disregarding the difference between raw mitigation and healing over time, just the fact that MB can be used on demand makes it so much better.

[Rithy255]

No it doesn't, because the Phoenix regen isn't an on-demand heal over time. You get it when you summon Phoenix, which you'd do as soon as it's available because that's how your rotation flows on SMN, not because of outgoing party damage. Magick Barrier is on demand damage mitigation that you can plan for and use whenever you want as long as it's not on CD. A vast majority of the time when I use phoenix, its party heal goes out to a group that's already topped off because phoenix didn't line up with any outgoing party damage and holding phoenix excessively to wait for damage to occur is wildly sub-optimal and pointless. If magicked barrier were like smn regen, you'd be forced to use it the second it came off cd, whether there was damage incoming or not. You would have zero actual agency over when it went out, and most of the time it would accomplish nothing.

This comparison is honestly so inaccurate, and it's what I meant by bad faith arguments earlier. Even disregarding the difference between raw mitigation and healing over time, just the fact that MB can be used on demand makes it so much better.

I actually think casters in general should be buffed, BLM should even be ahead of samurai (I know hot take)

If you have good enough healers they will know when phoneix is out, this depends on the situations but It does come in use quite a lot, It's pretty useful for what it is even if you can't time it because good healers will make use of it, as it's static they know each and everytime it's going out. Magik Barrier is Addle 2, both are about as useful as each other but generally magick barrier, I generally agree has more general uses, Phonenix Regen is more useful then you give credit, obviously it doesn't compare to Magick barrier, but both are honestly just tiny utilities that don't really even effect much and I'll make that pretty clear.

What I will say is the actual mobility of summoner way overshadows Magick barrier in a lot of cases, It's a massive reason why people want a smn over red mage, SMN can pratically act as a phys ranged 80% of the time it's really useful in Progression when you really don't know when is a good time to move or not, I feel like you just ignored this and talked about phoneix regen when I first said summoner mobility, It's a massive advantage over red mage in general.

I mainly just disagree with the fact you think a 10% Barrier utility is the reason why RDM should be lower then SMN when SMN has lots of options to also support their team, they have so much mobility compared to RDM ontop of that.