Ah yes, a discussion about DPS balance boiling down to restorative and mitigative tools once again. This is why I love the caster role; tools and abilities like raise that should be in the realm of healers instead are one of the hottest points of debate for a damage role.

I wish they'd dump raise off the caster role entirely, give it to all three casters, add a cooldown to SMN and RDM's raise of 1 minute, or make verraise ineligible for dualcast. They've shown with Accel they can disqualify spells for specific instantcast abilities. I'm not playing Red Mage to live out my healer fantasy. If I wanted to play a healer, I have an entire role to choose from, and that role should have the neat alterations to raise like fast raise, pre-raise, strong raise, group raise, etc.

As far as Magick Barrier vs Phoenix? Yeah, in most cases Magick Barrier is more useful. However we have so much mitigation from every role at this point in the game, with almost all of it being multiplicative, that more often than not Magick Barrier doesn't even get its full 10% of usefulness (also it is demonstrably weaker than tactician, both in duration (10s vs 15s) and effect (MB mitigates only magic, tactician mitigates all damage)). So we're comparing something with what I'd rate 4/10 for usefulness (MB) with something I'd rate 3/10 (Phoenix).

Phoenix at least comes with the caveat that, if the boss is bursting during a group burst, the healers can lean on that even if just a bit and any tank hit with Rekindle doesn't need to be bothered with for a little while; 1,400 potency of free healing on a single target, with 1,000 of that coming from a regen activated via an excog-like trigger system. There's no reason to *not* hit the tank with that every time Phoenix is up, what does overheal really matter when there's no opportunity cost? Just like with any mitigation plan, the healers can actively work their cooldowns around knowing Rekindle is going out at points.

That long ramble aside, I'll reiterate my stance as ever: nerf or remove raise from casters entirely. There's a role dedicated to people who want the healer fantasy and neither RDM nor SMN are in it.