So about Summoner...

[xxPheNoMeNa]

> A group limit of 8 doesn't mean only 8 jobs can be balanced at a time. If jobs have balanced pros and cons, then different comps will be equally viable for a raid. It may be that different jobs play better with certain other jobs by how they cover each other's weaknesses, and that's fine. This is just common sense, imo.

All comps are "viable" right now. If ANY caster has an argument for "viability" right now, it's Black Mage due to how punishing that class is if you don't know how to optimize movement. RDM has always been a viable class for raiding, it's inherently overpowered for progression and it falls off in farm. For optimization purposes, there will always be a "god comp" and this has been evidenced for years and it happens in every other MMO. You will never achieve "perfect balance" and it goes beyond just class balance numbers specifically. Raid design also plays a part in this (notice how strong Monk is in o5s/o6s but how it drops off in o7s and o8s).

> You can't sit there and say being good for progression only is okay when we have a handful of jobs that get to be good for prog and farm.

Black Mage hasn't been considered "good" for anything in years, and I think many BLM players are fine with how the class is right now. They received a few good buffs and their damage output is good if played appropriately. The community as a whole still looks down upon it because "lul no utility". Again this community is too fixated on "god comps" and numbers when it doesn't apply to most of them.

This may also be an issue for those who decide to "one trick" a class rather than collectively play everything for their role. Those of us who play multiple casters won't see this as a problem because we know RDM is extremely good for one purpose and SMN another, and we'll play both to fulfill those purposes. The ones who only want to play RDM though feel this is unfair.

> As for the rest...rebalancing of savage has nothing to do with this. People want to feel like they aren't holding their group back with their job, that they aren't being carried by default because of their job crystal.

Actually in a way it does, although it's rather a byproduct from it. Savage being rebalanced to be "easier" has allowed a lot more players to clear faster (or even clear at all), which only emphasizes this complaint of "RDM is useless after prog". Also I've personally never felt that my group "carries me" when playing RDM. Even when I am on the class, I'm among the highest DPS in my group (and these are all 99% players at their respective classes). Yes I can do more on SMN, but RDM is not so low that you're getting carried. If that's actually the case, that's a skill issue and not a class issue.

TL;DR: We don't have to accept imbalance as an inevitability and say nothing. If something is borked, it's better to point it out and hope they fix it rather than to say nothing and know that they won't.

But the arguments people make regarding "imbalance" can be misguided. People just want to point at numbers and say "look our damage sucks, we need buffs" without understanding the full picture. There's a reason some of us say RDM is actually ok, because we know what the class is capable of doing at optimal levels of play and we still understand that while their raise utility is disregarded after prog, it's one of if not the most overpowered ability in the game DURING prog. If people want RDM buffs, then they would have to remove their raise utility to compensate, which at that point you just have a generic caster dps with a melee combo.