Mage job players, and DD mind set

I have to agree, recently I've been quite mean to mages when they don't have boost STR on WHM, or parse low in yorcia. However, after I cool down I kinda regret my attitude toward them.

Most of the FFXI player should already know, finding a BRD WHM SCH for delve run is the hardest. There are several reasons:

1. Players tend to play DD more.....idk why. But I'm also a DD job only player in every MMO, so maybe I don't have the right to complain.

2. Support jobs are the least recognized job in FFXI. There are measurable number to determine who is good at their job on DD, by parsing. But you can't really determine who is good at BRD WHM SCH unless you actually pt with them.

And even if you pt with them, you can only determine how good they're at the job by making assumptions based on personal experience.

If you pt with awesome mage A, and pt with another awesome mage B, you can only say "Both A and B is awesome", but you can't tell who is more awesome without a measurable number.

3. It's a lot easier to make mistake on mage jobs, and when they do, it's usually make or break.

The result is, mage jobs require more work and in the end, and it's usually the first to blame when things went wrong.

Therefore, ppl who plays mage because the LS needs them should deserve some credit regardless how they perform, IMO.

Speaking of support, recently Sogomi challenged me with the "DD mind set". He claimed we shouldn't only look at the dmg dealt when determining whether a DD is good or not, but also the amount of cure the DD needs.

Although it may make sense, in practice it's hard to judge DD with the amount of cures required too. That's because, in a short zerg fight like delve NM, the NM tend to stick on the DD generating most hate.

For example, if me and a MNK engaged the same NM on the same time, according to my experience, the NM tend to stick on the MNK most of the time because MNK can deal dmg faster than me, thus generating hate faster than me too.

I may be just eyeballing, but my experience is, I don't get hit as much as the other DDs in same pt, even if the hate bounce around, NM tend to pay attention to other DD first.

Therefore, it's not exactly accurate to judge DD hierarchy based on the dmg taken either.

I guess in the end, "who is good and who is bad" is just personal experience thing.