Quote Originally Posted by Nalien View Post
Right... So of the casters, only Red Mage should have Raise, because... That's harder to balance and you have no idea how that would be properly balanced? Sorry, but it sounds to me like you've either just given reasoning for Red Mage (and Summoner) losing Raise utility entirely, or (as I suggested) making Raise utility a non-unique thing... If it's not unique and effectively a role skill, then it is far simpler to balance, because it's essentially a non-factor when balancing the casters. Making a Job weaker because, as you put it, it can salvage a run from a scenario you don't even want to be in to begin with, is just a really poor design choice.

Something as potentially powerful as Raise should either be on none of the casters, or all of them. That way their individual balancing is not determined by having it or not. All get it, or none get it, either way you make having Raise a non-factor when balancing them, which really should be the goal.
Perhaps I didn't word it properly and I apologize for the confusion. In my opinion, only RDM should have raise because otherwise it's going to continue being overshadowed by SMN. The (sad) reality of this game is that we value DPS above all else and when you have 2 jobs with the same utility, guess which one people will pick. I don't know how to balance raise and legit healing RDM has because how exactly do you quantify these spells' values? Unlike other utilities, these 2 are absolute; either you need it or you don't and potency tweaks won't change this. RDM is in a unique spot; it suffers a lot from its utility tax but these are job-defining, lore-affirming, and overall great for diversity. Yet unlike other jobs, high end RDMs are being held back by their utilities because nobody needs it at that level, yet they still suffer the damage tax. So yeah, I don't know how to balance RDM.

You're right, making raise a role skill is the easiest way to balance the 3 casters. However, I don't think this is a good way to do it because it'll either cause power-creep across the board or isolate casters altogether. If all casters have raise, melee and range will need some adjustments to compensate the lack of this run-salvaging spell. That's going to be a lot of potency increases everywhere and although I like big numbers and I cannot lie, I think it's bad. If casters get utility tax because of raise role skill, then it'll be like RDM situation all over again except this time it's melee, range, caster rather than BLM, SMN, RDM.