Quote Originally Posted by silentwindfr View Post
snip
You're right. All the points are legitimate, but one thing that confuses the heck outta me is the way that physical damage is broken up by type:
Slashing: PLD, WAR, DRK, NIN, SAM
Piercing: DRG, BRD, MCH (I think BRD/MCH use piercing, since they use arrows and gunshots. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here!)
Blunt: MNK

This creates a huge problem, because the piercing debuff of DRG will benefit your BRD/MCH (assuming BRD/MCH are piercing damage), creating some synergy, your slashing debuff of NIN (and WAR I think), synergises with the other tanks, and the SAM. MNK's blunt resistance down affects whom now... just them. SAM is the selfish DPS and gets boosted further by the synergy of a NIN or a WAR's slashing debuff. Which makes them even more powerful compared to MNK. Especially in higher tier play, synergy is a big factor. We need a good party makeup that works well with each other. I know you said we shouldn't wait until next expansion but here's what I would do, but it would have to be next expansion.
New healer: Dancer. Off-healer type role, their magic would be healing only, all attacks would be physical blunt damage and would be used to channel their healing power (thus giving them a reason to DPS!)
New tank: Not sure what tank you'd think of, but something that uses blunt weapons. Maybe make it defensive based like PLD?

This would then give the MNK some synergy with other jobs, and help give them a reason to exist. They would have other jobs that can match up with. I think this would go a long way to helping bridge the gap. There's many other issues here, but I feel this is one I can see the need addressing.