Please let summoner keep raise

[Lyth]

Let me see if I can recap your views.

• It is unfair to you that melee have consistently good DPS output, setting aside the fact that the top DPS, which even the dev team have admitted on record is overpowered, is a Magical Ranged job.
• You believe that raise should remain as it is on SMN/RDM, with a DPS penalty left intact to create an upper and lower tier of magical ranged jobs. You are willing to make a marginal concession on the value of this DPS penalty, however.
• You believe that BRD/DNC/MCH should carry an intrinsic DPS penalty that make them do less damage than the upper tier of magical ranged jobs because they have 'more consistent uptime and are immune to disruption' than magical ranged jobs. You are willing to make a marginal concession on the value of this DPS penalty, however.

Let me recap my views:

• DPS parity is important. Having upper and lower tiers of damage dealers within a role category is bad. In a well balanced system, variations in fight conditions will push different jobs to the top, promoting comp diversity.
• If access to raises is preventing DPS parity, then making it available across all ranged jobs will allow it to be implemented without penalty.
• There are other forms of utility that are presently untaxed. Once you have established DPS parity, these can be explored as a means of developing job identity.

I think the problem with discussing big picture questions around design direction is that everyone wants to defend their territory and preserve the status quo, at the expense of making changes that would benefit the game as a whole. That's the reason why we see some jobs in an absolutely miserable state for entire expansions on end.

I would have thought that we could at least find agreement that DPS parity is a good thing. If Raise is preventing DPS parity, then it makes sense to standardise it across ranged jobs so that it no longer factors in as a DPS penalty. There are other ways of developing job identity through utility actions.

[Galvuu]

Let me see if I can recap your views.

• It is unfair to you that melee have consistently good DPS output, setting aside the fact that the top DPS, which even the dev team have admitted on record is overpowered, is a Magical Ranged job.
• You believe that raise should remain as it is on SMN/RDM, with a DPS penalty left intact to create an upper and lower tier of magical ranged jobs. You are willing to make a marginal concession on the value of this DPS penalty, however.
• You believe that BRD/DNC/MCH should carry an intrinsic DPS penalty that make them do less damage than the upper tier of magical ranged jobs because they have 'more consistent uptime and are immune to disruption' than magical ranged jobs. You are willing to make a marginal concession on the value of this DPS penalty, however.

"Marginal"? I didn't put a value to the tax. I don't know. It could be 1%, it could be 5%, it could be whatever. I said what we have now is excessive, that I still think it should exist (otherwise you're never using BLM) but that I ultimately don't know what value it should have. Only that the current one is excessive. I mean, you argued for the phys ranged tax yourself in another thread (the "from meleewalker to meleetrail" one, agreeing with me at the time), mentioning that you thought melee uptime was being sufficiently challenged in the normal modes of Arcadion.

I don't have a problem with melee doing good damage. I have a problem with melee outperforming all ranged jobs except BLM in EW and half of ShB (eventually SMN got there too, for two patches). 4/5 of the highest dps jobs in every dps metric in EW were melee. For ShB this was also the case for every patch except two (5.2 and 5.3). There hasn't been a physical ranged in there since we added rdps as a metric in fflogs. I just think maybe the top 5 should be 2/3 melee, 1/2 casters and 1/2 physical ranged. I didn't even want to be talking about dps subrole damage, or a job's specific damage profile or any of that.

Regardless, what I was actually arguing was that some casters having a raise is a differentiating factor that provides a powerful, if situational utility niche (it does), that casters are the only subrole with such a meaningful differentiation between its jobs (they are), that historically it's been very powerful in many situations (it is in early prog and in a more disorganized pf setting, which accounts for 9/10 of raid play), and that it's currently overtaxed in terms of damage (it is) although I, personally, think it should still have some form of penalty (otherwise you're never bringing a BLM).

Your last argument could really be directed back at you. I could sit here and pretend that you're arguing as you are to make sure all casters have a similar baseline damage that's subpar because they all have access to a rez- it's obvious that this is how SE balances access to rez, so if we gave all casters a rez, then PCT and BLM would never be competing with melee again, which would put the final nail in the dps composition coffin (you'd always run 2x melee). As long as 4 of the 5 strongest jobs in every metric are melee, double caster (or, God forbid, double ranged) are never going to outperform double melee. If BLM gets a bit of a bump next patch, this will be the first time since Stormblood where a non-2x melee comp might be the best for a few fights. And I most definitely don't want to preserve the status quo, which is double melee still dominating. If I could have it my way, you'd be seeing double caster and double ranged either be within a hair of double melee, or just beating it outright in some fights. I also don't understand why other utility actions are good for developing identity, but not the rez. Other utility being a source of identity? Good. Rez being a source of identity? Bad. I mean, this exact argument is gonna be copy pasted ad nauseam when you have different utility in the jobs. If every caster suddenly had a rez and the same baseline dps, guess what? People will start looking at Magick Barrier and Tempera Coat because those two give their jobs an edge (not even going to bring up ease of execution, another factor we know SE considers).