Quote Originally Posted by Aidorouge View Post
Why exactly encounters became the "hard part" while jobs didn't, I can only assume it's because they didn't want anybody's favorite job to feel like it couldn't participate in certain content, so every job had to be made viable even if that resulted in homogenization or over-simplification. "No jobstone left behind" and such.
Hot take: Encounters became the "hard part" in a way that ignores the existence of roles and jobs. Spread. Stack. In. Out. Go left. Go right. Do the hokey pokey. None of that cares whether you're a tank, healer, melee DPS, or ranged DPS. Every job becomes viable when all that an encounter requires is that whatever warm bodies exist not stand in the bad.

Add in a DPS check, and maybe we start to care that everyone can maintain uptime. Add in a tank buster with a Damage Up debuff, and maybe we start to care that there's a second tank. Add in a "hard hitting" raid wide, and maybe we start to care that there's a healer around somewhere.

Rather than design encounters so that the jobs in the roles and sub-roles each have their part to play -- which would be a meaningful form of participation -- it would seem that SE has decided to see how far they can go with turning jobs into generic warm bodies.