So about Summoner...

[Capn_Goggles]

Well this isn't gonna happen. A raid comp in this game is only 8 players, meaning a max of 8 classes. Some classes WILL be left out and considered "sub optimal".

I don't think the term sub-optimal applies when you're blatantly outclassed in every aspect. Ninja, as one example, does very similar personal DPS while bringing tools that buff everyone else's damage as well as having insanely good enmity tools. Furthermore, the number of slots in a party is entirely irrelevant to making a job competitive (not meta, just competitive).

They also need to accept that the design direction SE took with RDM is WHY it's damage has to be balanced where it is, and why it will be viewed as a "lets just take this for progression" job.

You are wrong. Accepting something perceived as a flaw is not conducive to good design and customer retention, otherwise SE wouldn't bother with player feedback and they certainly wouldn't bother with balance patches. Clearly there is a portion of the playerbase who wants Red Mage to always be useful, rather than only being there to play res-bot and make newbie tank players want to kill themselves, and this portion of the playerbase has every right to desire that. Whether SE wants to act on their criticisms is their prerogative, but the players are in the right to want more out of the job.

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

And again... just flat out wrong. Black Mage has a much better argument for viability because it offers strong personal DPS at the expense of being harder to play, but a good Black Mage is only "sub optimal" compared to a summoner, rather than just having no reason to be there like Red Mage. Nobody is saying Red Mage needs to be meta, what they (and I) want is for it to be "competitive", in effect a job that while sub optimal still offers a strong slot to the group that isn't infinitely better served by literally everything else.

[xxPheNoMeNa]

You are wrong. Accepting something perceived as a flaw is not conducive to good design and customer retention, otherwise SE wouldn't bother with player feedback and they certainly wouldn't bother with balance patches. Clearly there is a portion of the playerbase who wants Red Mage to always be useful, rather than only being there to play res-bot and make newbie tank players want to kill themselves, and this portion of the playerbase has every right to desire that. Whether SE wants to act on their criticisms is their prerogative, but the players are in the right to want more out of the job.

A few classes aren't "always useful". BLM isn't "useful" and I don't hear them complaining much since their buffs, WHM isn't always "useful" and many people considered the balance between healers to be pretty good until these last AST buffs that happened (despite the fact that WHM was only taken for prog).

You are wrong. Accepting something perceived as a flaw is not conducive to good design and customer retention, otherwise SE wouldn't bother with player feedback and they certainly wouldn't bother with balance patches. Clearly there is a portion of the playerbase who wants Red Mage to always be useful, rather than only being there to play res-bot and make newbie tank players want to kill themselves, and this portion of the playerbase has every right to desire that. Whether SE wants to act on their criticisms is their prerogative, but the players are in the right to want more out of the job.

The class has a very niche design. Most casual players (the ones who don't even raid) seem to enjoy RDM from what I've personally witnessed and iirc was one of the more popular classes being played. Seems fine for player retention, it's only the small group in between that and those of us at the highest end that believe the sky is falling for the class. Even the best RDM players think the class is fine (and some argue it's still overpowered).

And again... just flat out wrong. Black Mage has a much better argument for viability because it offers strong personal DPS at the expense of being harder to play, but a good Black Mage is only "sub optimal" compared to a summoner, rather than just having no reason to be there like Red Mage.

No that's not wrong at all lol. Black Mage isn't any where close to the viability of RDM in progression, even if you completely ignore the raise utility RDM brings. Outside of prog there's more viability sure, but it's also looked down upon by most because it's damage output isn't "enough". Good black mages actually can match the overall output that SMN brings, the issue is it's very difficult to do so and very few players are capable of playing the class at that level, and if you don't play it well then it will punish you far greater than SMN would (hence the glaring disparity that people always bring up).

Nobody is saying Red Mage needs to be meta, what they (and I) want is for it to be "competitive", in effect a job that while sub optimal still offers a strong slot to the group that isn't infinitely better served by literally everything else.

And in what way is it not "competitive"? Because those of us who optimize at a bleeding edge say "SMN is better"? If I played the class right now and tried to speedrun with my static, I bet I could still compete to be the highest dps in my group. Do you or these other people understand the damage RDM "can" do when you have an optimal group comp with proper party buff usage? Sure there's definitely a disparity between RDM and SMN, I've always agreed to that, but people act like RDM is the lowest dps in the game and that's actually not the case.

[Capn_Goggles]

A few classes aren't "always useful". BLM isn't "useful" and I don't hear them complaining much since their buffs, WHM isn't always "useful" and many people considered the balance between healers to be pretty good until these last AST buffs that happened (despite the fact that WHM was only taken for prog).

You're arguing a non-point however because "useful" is a nebulous non-statement toward overall job performance. Black Mage is useful, but it's outclassed and difficult to play, regardless its playerbase still has plenty of criticism about the job design and overall performance. White Mage is in a precarious position due to the low number of healers and even lower number of healer slots, but it was only marginally outclassed in higher end content prior to the latest patch, but this is a much more nuanced argument than the balance between DPS jobs which are more numerous both in available positions and in sheer volume of jobs.

Red Mage is useful in progression, but becomes entirely useless outside of it because its one piece of utility serves no purpose and it offers nothing outside of that.

[xxPheNoMeNa]

Red Mage is useful in progression, but becomes entirely useless outside of it because its one piece of utility serves no purpose and it offers nothing outside of that.

Useless for what though? Speedrunning? Sure it's not useful there because that dps disparity actually matters. But it's still a dps class that can still compete with other dps classes (non casters) in terms of personal damage and it has embolden which averages out to nearly 6% over its duration (actually in a way it can be argued to be "stronger" due to how it's diminishing effect works, as you'd be aligning the majority of your burst damage during it's 10%/8%/6% windows). I know it only affects physical damage to the rest of the party, but optimal raid comps are mostly physical anyways so you still get good value out of it if you align it properly

This perception of RDM being "useless" is just weird. And frankly, even if they did buff the class, unless it does become meta people will continue to have this perception of RDM only being a prog job

[Capn_Goggles]

This perception of RDM being "useless" is just weird. And frankly, even if they did buff the class, unless it does become meta people will continue to have this perception of RDM only being a prog job

Of course people will still have the perception of it being a prog job, the important thing is that it would be a perception rather than something enforced by the actual job design, and part of that involves giving Red Mage something to offer that isn't spamming resurrection spells. Embolden is a complete joke, and the reason I didn't include it in the discussion is because it provides such a minimal increase in rdps even when used to its absolute best effect.

[xxPheNoMeNa]

Of course people will still have the perception of it being a prog job, the important thing is that it would be a perception rather than something enforced by the actual job design, and part of that involves giving Red Mage something to offer that isn't spamming resurrection spells. .

It's only a perception now. This isn't gordias, content is not tuned to the point where your composition REALLY matters. Any reason why RDM is not played right now is that perception. And buffing the class will honestly not change that, it will just "enforce" that RDM is THE class to take for prog because it will be even better and then will be disregarded afterwards because everyone circle jerks our speedrun meta.

Embolden is a complete joke, and the reason I didn't include it in the discussion is because it provides such a minimal increase in rdps even when used to its absolute best effect

Embolden is easily 400-500 rDPS with proper alignment, which is comparable to pretty much every individual raid buff in the game aside from Trick Attack or the rng of Balance cards. Hypercharge, Brotherhood, Chain Strategem, Battle Litany, etc., Embolden offers about the same (or close to) rDPS as any one of these buffs. In what world is that a "complete joke"?

[Wilbow]

Embolden is easily 400-500 rDPS with proper alignment, which is comparable to pretty much every individual raid buff in the game aside from Trick Attack

...And THERE YOU GO. RDM does NIN level pDPS while providing considerably less rDPS (trick is 600 DPS unoptimized, up to 900 DPS optimized). Never mind that NIN can use its enmity reduction tools alongside shirk to squeeze out even more DPS from the tanks by making them avoid using their emnity combos and generally makes content much less stressful to deal with.

I can do a similar analysis with BRD, or DRG, or MNK, or SMN, or BLK...

But muh verraise, right?

You're fighting a losing argument on this. The numbers aren't on your side. I'm sorry.

[Kabooa]

I know it only affects physical damage to the rest of the party, but optimal raid comps are mostly physical anyways so you still get good value out of it if you align it properly

This is the part that gets me.

It's a caster that you wouldn't want in magic based set ups if they ever existed since part of its damage is physical and it buffs Physical classes. By this same token, in strong physical set ups you still don't want it because there's better physical support / supported jobs as well.

Verraise is a pretty awful string to dangle why. Why not make them desirable, both to play and team up with, on other merits?

[xxPheNoMeNa]

This is the part that gets me.
Verraise is a pretty awful string to dangle why. Why not make them desirable, both to play and team up with, on other merits?

In what way should it be desirable though? It's already desirable for prog, for it to be "desirable" after that it would need to be strong enough to be meta or close to it (and making it that strong with it's verraise utility untouched would actually destroy the balance of casters). And if it's not strong enough to be meta (or in the position SMN is in right now), it won't ever be desirable after prog because the community as a whole will continue to believe that our level of optimization applies to them and they'll copy it (and this cycle will repeat).