Quote Originally Posted by Numenor1379 View Post
You can actually, if you think about how their MP is used and what all three have to do to regain it. SCH/SMN have basically the same regen tools and WHM has Shroud. All three WILL run into MP issues in drawn out fights if they are pushing their classes to the max possible (healing/stance dancing/dpsing). SCH may be able to delay that a bit longer than SMN/WHM but it WILL happen no matter what any of them do. The problem between the three of them now is that SMN will run dry a LOT sooner than the other two, leading to the "not playing Ballad solely for a SMN" issue. Get the SMN MP consumption in line with the healer level and Ballad would be timed appropriately for all three.

As far as the BLM MP system being the problem... whatever you're smoking I want some. Just because a single class has a unique MP system in the game that lets them cast continually, we're to completely gut that class and rebuild it from scratch (taking away that unique system) due to SMNs not being able to do their optimal rotation forever? O_o

That's like burning down the house to kill an ant. You would completely destroy what a BLM is were you to eliminate the Astral/Umbral system. No one is saying that SMNs need to be infinitely self-sustaining like a BLM, people are saying the MP system of the SMN needs to be tweaked to improve their staying power at max DPS levels to match the length of fights the devs are creating.
Again... you can't compare healers to DDs. Healers mana consumption is dictated by the damage the party is taking. Those numbers fluctuate depending on the performance of the rest of the party. DDs have a consistent resource usage.

As for Blms. There is no reason to bring a class that needs extra attention to perform as well as its competition. I think that is agreed upon. Now the only way to alleviate that is to make all the casters either have unlimited resources or make all casters need the same extra attention. That is the formula for melee. They all need bard. That should also be the formula for all casters.