The Melee DPS Paradigm and why DRG needs some attention

[Heatkrieg]

Litany is one of the most powerful buffs in the game, Dragon Sight is still a free 5% and it's up pretty often...

No, it is not. Litany is an RNG based buff, meaning that despite your crit chance going up by 15%, there's still a chance that you might not crit. Any DRG out here who has played DRG in HW could tell you the pain of using both Litany and Internal Release in your opener and still not being able to crit anything outside of the occasional auto attack or true thrust. Litany is also a 180 second cooldown, which compared to Chain Strategem, a SCH debuff that operates more or less the same, takes a minute longer to come off cooldown. Dragon Sight is also very weak for a utility. For 20 seconds you tether someone to you who you know WILL run out of the tether's range to get their positionals or avoid a mechanic. That ability needs a rework in the way it's both applied and the length of the tether.

Finally, disembowel, and I left this for last to address an issue that someone else brought up:

Follow me here. Slashing is inherently more balanced than Piercing. Though they shouldn't exist at all, as there's better ways to encourage 'synergy', and it has such a tight hold on balancing party comps.

Slashing would not be balanced if it was only NIN, or only SAM or only WAR that brought it. However, 3 sources of Slashing exist, and each Job that has access is required to put it up for themselves. If you're forced to provide it for yourself, and you are, the only beneficiaries are those who can't naturally put it up. PLD, and DRK. Therefore, Slashing, at it's best, is only benefiting Tank damage, which is naturally lower. It's also never attributed to any one source of Slashing in a party, unless there is only one source in the party. I could see them taking it away from SAM, but if they do that, I could also see them upping their damage even more to compensate for having literally 0 sources of any benefit in a party.

Piercing, by comparison, buffs DPS (as opposed to Tanks). And since the beneficiaries (MCH/BRD/RDM) can't provide it, isn't a part of their rotation, AND can be stacked for further benefit (as we saw in Creator Savage), it escalates quickly. Disembowel has the potential to lock meta in a way no other skill in the game does. With Disembowel alone, you could argue at least 2 slots, if not 3, become easy 'best' choices. Any buff to it, is a buff to at least 2 slots in your party, 3 if it's too powerful. If it was at 10% right now, and we rounded out MCH at 4000 damage, double ranged would be roughly 700-800 rDPS benefit, not counting DRG's other utility. Any buff to the physical ranged also buffs DRG. It's too much. Which is why it shouldn't exist at all, OR should be given to one or both physical ranged.

In principle I don't disagree with you, however, that 5% loss in damage butchered the damage potential of at least 3 classes in the game. Yes, the nerf in disembowel makes DRGs less of a must pick but right now, no BRD let alone MCH can cross the 3.5k barrier without being incredibly lucky on crit/direct hits. Meanwhile, RDMs and SMNs are prancing around the battlefield with their mobility, much more lenient rotations and higher damage potential. Now, don't get me wrong, MCHs and BRDs need to do less damage if they're to stick to the more utility = less DPS creed, otherwise we risk going back to Alexander Creator Savage days where BRD/MCH comps were meta but as it currently stands, MCHs and BRDs are fairly discouraged into going into raid environments with their nerfed damage potential which is to say nothing of how DRGs are fairing.

Let's for argument's sake say you took away the slashing debuff away from NIN and SAM. Do you think they'd be less desirable in a raid setting than they are now compared to DRG? No. SAM's damage potential provided you can actually play the class proficiently is so high, you'd have to be ill to pass on it. NIN's trick attack and aggro manipulation makes them superior to every single melee in the game. NINs are enablers of the tank DPS meta, which I understand that some people don't particularly like since it imposes certain expectations of tanks but it's a playstyle that I heavily endorse and support as do many of the mid-core and all of the semi-hardcore and hardcore players out there. Even MNK comes with better utility; people underestimate Mantra but it's effectively the reason why many world first groups in Gordias, Midas and Creator Savage picked up MNK instead of DRG for progression. With brotherhood, their utility got even better considering that it's not RNG-based like Litany and for every time we use Litany as DRGs, MNKs use Brotherhood twice.