[1.2.378] Magicians in Jump

In any case, you'd still have the role to support. Cast protecting skills, dispelling, healing lagging people or those spamming skills, blessing, reviving, dooming (seems doable now), but you'd have something to do meanwhile. I mean, besides hanging on a rope and pressing 2-3 keys for buffs every few minutes.

A random example, I was leveling my Wind Archer to 120 the other day, and not having HB in certain party, a Bishop saved my ass with a rescue heal a few times. But then he seemed to lose motivation and just hanged on a rope for an hour or so. I missed the heals he could have given me while attacking and whatnot. Even unintentional heals I got when he was healing himself. Just an example on how Bishops could be even more useful supporters if given the motivation to be in the battlefield, instead of a rope. And as a Bishop, I wouldn't mind casting support spells 30% or 40%, of the time, if the rest of the time I could actually do something. THAT sounds like a supporting class to me, as opposed to a mule, which is the current state of Bishops.

Want to give Bishops something to do?
Make pot cool down universal. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it.

Another thing they could do is make Bishops the go-to class for status effects.
Take Slow and Seal from the other classes and give it to the class that would make the most sense to have it.
Allow Seal to work on bosses and throw a CD on it.

As someone who created a Cleric as his first main before 4th Job was even announced, what appealed to me most about the class was both self-sufficiency (in terms of being able to survive most places while simultaneously being pot-efficient) and the bonus it got from party training.
The times I went to Horntail were a blast since my squad relied on me in order to finish the run; would have been even better if I had more than Dispel and Heal to cast regularly.

I don't believe making the class stronger is the answer though; find other ways to give them the exp.
Make Bishops the support role, but don't forget to make sure to give them support skills.
Hell, make healing people give more experience. Make Dispelling give experience. Why not?

The biggest disappointment of this patch is the death of party play zones.
When I said that I wished all training benefited from having a party, I didn't mean that they should invalidate all training locations except one.
They're taking the game the wrong direction...
But, hey, I'll try to be optimistic and hope that Monster Park is their way of testing the system (if only).

So Papu dies in 8 seconds as opposed to 24 seconds (yes, I timed it)? 16 seconds difference doesn't seem like a whole lot on the damage difference spectrum. Granted, Steve even admitted that the reason why it even took as "long" as it did was due to his rusty play as a Bishop. In fact, it proves they're quite close if classes had similar funding.

It actually proves that they aren't even remotely close.
8:24 means that the Bishop kills 3 times as slow as whatever you're comparing to it.
1/3 of the damage in a solo-training scenario means 1/3 of the experience. Even if you give the Bishop HS, he's getting half as much experience as everyone else.