This isn’t a new thought, but with Pictomancer seemingly being close to BLM in terms of its place in a party, I think it warrants discussing.

Caster is literally the only job type that has two distinct sub roles despite it being one category.

Yes, there are two types of healers, but balance is that a party should hopefully have one of each for best results.

Caster has “progress jobs” ie summoner and red mage, and then “speed jobs” ie black mage and likely pictomancer that provide more rdps, but lack the Rez for progression.

This makes it hard to “main” a job like pictomancer, or at least hard to “main” picto for raiding. Most groups are going to want you to play red mage or summoner for prog. Melee DPS don’t deal with this. Viper will be just as viable for a group as SAM, RPR, DRG, MNK, NIN. Balance is always subject to change, but they’ll always all be fine in a raid group.

Maybe call summoner and red mage support casters, and pictomancer and black mage can be called something else. Thoughts?