Can someone give me an in-depth explanation why Summoner is arguably the worst DPS?

[Judge_Xero]

and what if crit and det replaced all spell speed on your gear? The problem lies not in abilities alone, it's fairly compounding and if I'm correct in the assumption isolated to patch 2.4/2.5. every 4-5 det should roughly equal 1 int. It isn't unheard of for SE to change stats on items (recall allagan boots i90 version) I'm mainly talking about the lolwtf dreadwyrm book. Just proper itemization would add about 5-10 more dps, and looking at your previous numbers smns would then beat blm in 10 and 11. This would easily put them over the 500 marker, maybe above 520 depending on management during adds.

I updated my above post to include what I feel is a reasonable value for BLM Potency/s to make a comparison for SMN Potency/s.

Gear wise, you are correct that better itemization for SMN could probably add an additional 5-10 DPS. (I'm to the idea that it would be closer to 5 DPS)

On average this would leave a gap of ~50 DPS for any given turn in FCOB, which brings me back to that Potency/s value of BLM that is 10% higher.

T10 - SMN 470 vs BLM 525 (SMN + 10% = 517 DPS)

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So going from 2COB to FCOB we have the increase damage from gear + more up-time in FCOB for BLM to maintain damage, which makes this difference more obvious.

i.e. (i106)
BLM 442 DPS max
SMN 401 DPS max

So you only start out with a 41 DPS difference. Add in movement + boss jumps etc and you only end up with +/- 10 DPS between each

FCOB (i111)
BLM 460 DPS
SMN 417 DPS

Out of the gate, BLM starts 43 DPS higher with the potential for more.

Estimated DPS i131
BLM 585
SMN 531

(a whopping 56 DPS higher - almost exactly 10% higher) - does not include SMN loss of damage for things dying faster, or lucky BLM procs (less tick time)

- Prior to BLM buffs in 2.3

Estimated: BLM 115 Potency/s with the option for %5+

So...was BLM actually well balanced prior to it's buffs?

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I mean Melee DPS is getting pretty crazy, but prior to 2.3 BLM buffs at least the mage classes were close to equal.