Dev silence about SMN

[Firepower]

The issue with comparing DRG to SMN is that DRG had AWFUL magic defense so in the final coil it was getting destroyed by magic unavoidable aoe's that no other job in the game was being affected by. Hence the need to buff its Magic Defense, i'm guessing since they was tweaking DRG at that point anyway they decided to balance it's DPS a bit more considering most bosses spin around a lot and DRG was being crippled by missing heavy thrust and impulse drive because of positioning.

SMN's issue is not a survivability or massive DPS drop off, it is just currently weaker than the others because it was the strongest and then all others have now been buffed so its the only unbuffed class (not including BRD which was nerfed for good reason, I accept SMN was nerfed when thunder was removed from cross class) plus they have to be doubly careful about SMN because any changes to Arcanist's skills will directly affect SCH and could then negatively affect WHM. So they are limited in what they can change right now and might not want to tweak the pets due to a potential new EGI coming in the expansion which would need re-tweaking in a few months time.

Finally SMN can complete all content in the game from now up to the expansion (as there is unlikely to be anything more difficult than final coil from now to expansion) and the gear is accessible to the point where it is unlikely to be overlooked by any other job for any content. DRG would still be excluded from final coil today if they didn't buff it due to its harsh mdef penalty it had. Buffs are needed but it is not essential to this period of time and post expansion it could be anyone's guess what the jobs are going to be like.