My biggest problems with the DPS battle system and how to fix them

[Lambdafish]

I find it at least as likely that they'd conflict with individual job identities.

I think this is the biggest problem with the DPS role system. It was made at a time where there weren't many jobs and job identities weren't so wildly varying. Even Physical/Caster ranged weren't so separate, with 2 slots being dedicated to melee, and 2 being dedicated to ranged. IMO the system we have is archaic and not designed for the amount of, and varying styles of job that we have in the game now.

[Shurrikhan]

I think this is the biggest problem with the DPS role system. It was made at a time where there weren't many jobs and job identities weren't so wildly varying. Even Physical/Caster ranged weren't so separate, with 2 slots being dedicated to melee, and 2 being dedicated to ranged. IMO the system we have is archaic and not designed for the amount of, and varying styles of job that we have in the game now.

I obviously can't disagree with that; I just feel that trying to pigeonhole jobs even further into homogeneous roles and sub-roles is the opposite direction of where we should be going. I.e. let Bard be more Bard; where exactly its indirect contribution ends up from there, within reason, is basically irrelevant.