If best way is the only...why do we see different setups ?

[Reynhart]

It's a balancing nightmare and I dont' want to see XI-2 where half the jobs in the game are considered unviable by the player base because they're ridiculously outclassed be easier to gear/play jobs.

FFXI was a balancing mess right from the start, because it didn't even properly enforce each role.
PLD had less HP than most of DPS jobs, and several of them could equip the best mitigation gear. In fact, PLD wasn't even a proper tank without the WAR subjob.
RDM, apart from being able to do almost everything was also the best at two things. You don't do that, it's jack-of-all trades 101.
Dev team also let emergent gameplay flourish without any control. "NIN wasn't supposed to be a tank !" Then, fix this ! Make Utsusemi like Blink. Done. NIN tank dead.

FFXIV is far more controled, especially because, now, they have an official forum to take the temperature. It's more balanced now with 13 jobs than FFXI ever was with 6.

[Tilgung]

Why are people quoting me and literally repeating what I said?

XIV is extremely well balanced. XI never was and never will be, and a lot of that has to do with a lack of communication and stubbornness on the Dev Teams side. But if you think the dozens and dozens of unique stats found on weapon and armor had no part in it, you're kinda absolutely wrong.

Adding unique stats would be cool, but pretending it isn't going to be a huge strain on the development team is silly.

[Ibi]

XI never was and never will be, and a lot of that has to do with a lack of communication and stubbornness on the Dev Teams side. But if you think the dozens and dozens of unique stats found on weapon and armor had no part in it, you're kinda absolutely wrong.

XI wasn't imbalanced because balance was difficult to achieve, it was imbalanced because achieving balance wasn't one of SE's goals.

And, outside of a very small number of rare and unusual items (Ridill, relics, mythics), XI's imbalance had almost nothing to do with unique stats found on weapons and armor and almost everything to do with job and system designs.