Quote Originally Posted by Lastelli View Post
This is the only thing that matters though. Except for some cases where a given job is frustrating to play, in which case we're not talking about balance but rather actual gameplay issues, discussing about job balance and relevance only makes sense with progression raiding and speekills in mind. And of course everyone here is talking about how SAM performs relative to other jobs. When we say that SAM should stay where it is now in terms of dps we mean to say that it should be ahead of any other job (with the possible exception of blm) be a high enough amount to justify its lack of synergy, whether or not other jobs are buffed. For instance, if mnk and nin are buffed, sam should be buffed as well, otherwise mnk/nin would be the preferred melee pair.

Casual players shouldn't even care about job balance unless one job is severly underpowered (like mch and brd were in 3.0) and/or not fun to play (I think this is what DRGs are complaining about right now) and/or has a stupid mechanic (again, barrel and minuet in 3.0 were basically a dps loss).
The problem is that there are some arguing with that consistency, such as you, whereas some are just saying "Don't touch my job!" I'm mostly addressing those who make it personal. Chances are if someone is making it personal when someone mentions balance changing or nerfs, they want their class completely untouched. Don't change it from the way they're used to, or like it, etc. People who have the mind for progression raiding and/or speedkilling, their arguments and viewpoints are more about the whole picture instead of just "how does this influence me?" A good amount of posts aside from those seem to read, "they can buff the other classes just don't nerf mine," without thinking about what that means.

Otherwise yeah, I agree with your viewpoint.