Should the Casting Timer be removed or reduced for better DPS output?

[AnotherPerson]

The 'casters do way more damage because of their planted gameplay' holds up right until you realize SMN has so much movement utility it may as well be a ranged DPS, while doing roughly the same level of damage as BLM (depending on fight.)

You made me remember why SMN's Tri disaster got nerfed by half its potency, too strong even for casters with its uptime.

I think all the caster jobs kinda deserve their high DPS due to their different gameplay styles. On one end, SMN offers the fast paced rapid attacker playstyle. On the other end, BLM offers the turret playstyle, and RDM offers a bit of both, but not so heavily skewed to one side.

SMN has the most free mobility of the casters, but many players can't even do the SMN rotation properly while moving because of all the buttons it has compared to other caster jobs (APM being a skill cap that bars bad SMN with good SMN), much less optimize it. While SMN has the most mobility while casting due to instant GCDs, they are also the most demanding caster having to weave a lot in their GCD, which messes up most people since they can't continue their rotation while dodging multiple mechanics. It's like one of those skill caps that require the player to either be able to multitask continuously or develop muscle memory to their rotation to make it easier. If the SMN continually messes up the weave rotation while trying to dodge mechanics, it drops a SMN's DPS by a good margin over the course of the encounter.

In terms of basic rotation, while the BLM rotation evolves the most compared to all jobs, it also has a very intuitive yet slower rotation which revolves around staying in Fire Phase as often as possible. Due to having to stay in place often for full duration GCD casts, it gives the player a lot more room to observe and look around in the encounter while waiting for their GCD to complete (similar to how ShB healers are currently work while repeatedly casting their nuke). However, because all their damage tools are on the GCD, it's also true that this job requires less APM and gives a player a lot more time to focus on how & where to reposition themselves midcast, giving a black mage this unique playstyle to cast as much as possible while minimizing unnecessary movement. This is also why it's very easy for a black mage who stops casting to move around often will lose a lot of DPS. It's essentially the same problem as a SMN who messes up their oGCDs or their rotation while moving that they lose DPS, except for BLM it's because they moved too much that they sacrificed DPS. BLM can get very mobile with good use of Aetherial Manipulation, Triplecast, Swiftcast, Sharpcast proc, and 2 Xenoglossy.

Red Mage is kinda a balance of the two. It has a lot of mobility with Dualcasting and Corps-a-Corps / Displacement /Manafication and it's rotation is very simple, but it also has specific requirements to placement since RDM's burst damage revolves around getting into melee range for the enchanted melee combo and before allowing RDM to move freely with 2 instant GCDs. Corps-a-corps and displacement are also pretty much required to be used at a certain point if RDM wants to maximize their DPS at the cost of their mobility, though manafication does essentially ensure they get to refresh their Corps-a-corps/ displacement so there are windows where they can hold onto them for movement rather than for DPS in addition to dualcasting. They also get a bit more utility than the other two with vercure and verraise, but their MP takes a huge hit if they plan on using it, so their DPS is pretty much balanced.