BLM Utility ideas!

[Zerathor]

No. It's really just raise. The rest of smn utility is extremely negligible. If smn didn't have raise, they'd go back to bringing mch or bring a rdm for group prog. So yeah, I'd say it's 99% the justification.

But smn shouldn't be nerfed, blm should get some form of utility that can possibly prevent deaths, or a noticeable dps edge

[EllieShadeflare]

No. It's really just raise. The rest of smn utility is extremely negligible.

I'm sorry, but as negligible as that utility is, that's more effective than the raise itself. What does raise do for anyone that's not progressing? It serves as a DPS loss for the whole party and the fact remains that if people are dying consistently enough for you to be concerned with rezzing, then there's a problem with your party. Very few, if any, Extreme/Savage/Ultimate bosses are balanced to be beatable with more than maybe two or three raises due to the stringency of both DPS checks and enrages. Hell, in most cases, a raise won't save you if it's a healer or tank that's dead since the party will often dissolve rather quickly, especially if you're dealing with a boss with a major add (Byakko, Halicarnassus, Guardian) or Shinryu who gets to auto attack both tanks.

Is Raise useful for the likes of Deep Dungeon, Eureka and other low tier content? Oh, certainly. But that's not what the dev team really balances for. They tend to be more focused on balancing for raiding, where Raise doesn't matter because dying is just that painful. This is why Red Mage is almost never taken past progression: it's so weak when you stop considering Verraise that you may as well take literally any other DPS instead of Red Mage. Embolden is such a pathetic form of utility due to its drop off and its damage is just... not good in comparison to other jobs. Only Bard is weaker than Red Mage, but then you realize "wait but not only does Bard get a massive DPS boost from Dragoon, they already have some of the best utility to work with on account of them being a Ranged-DPS and also their native Bard kit!"

[Zerathor]

snip

Never once have I been asked to go from blm to smn for devotion, or contagion, or radiant shield. Guess why they wanted a smn? I'll give you a hint: the same thing they said a rdm would work for too.

You're downplaying how strong a dps raise is in ultimate or even savage by a lot.