Personally, i think that the notion of opening rank 2 classes to rank 1 is somewhat difficult to balance around, especially even now at the current cap level. Mages aside, the swordies, archers and clerics would fall off quicker since all three classes use at least one of their current basic class skills often even post 200.
Mages, although they have a weak basic class, their rank 2 and above covers up for it(at least in the current meta). If IMC were to open the rank 2 classes to rank 1, then the other basic classes are given the choice to fully specialize in one factor but lose out one or two of the good scaling skills that comes with the basic class.
Taking that into consideration, most clerics will still start out on the basic cleric for the scaling heal and lose out 1 rank either way. This would be unfair to them since their basic class comes with the heal, and the other healing skills quite non-existent, besides Priest c2 with their mass heal but even that only heals 1/3 of a player’s max hp with a 30 sec cd with no overheat.
Then we have swordies C1 with Gung ho and Concentrate in which doesn’t really scale but the buff is good nevertheless(+70 raw damage Gung Ho + max attribute), if players were to start at c2, but doesn’t opt for Swordman C1, they would lose out in a noticeable amount of dps compared to swordies that actually took c1 since Lv5 Gung Ho + lv 50 attribute amounts to almost 25% of a two hand weapon damage at lv 220, and 15% of the lolopanther’s lv 270, and if the player opts for a one hand weapon it would amount to at least 30% boost or more.
Archers lose out on swift step and oblique shot, while it doesn’t seem like much, oblique shot takes over almost every archer’s basic attack because of it’s 0 cd and hits two targets( Then Ranger C3 would be so much more preferred and nobody will go for Archers/QS unless committing for C3). And Swift step’s attribute grants up to +25% crit rate while having another attribute for a party wide buff, contributing a lot especially in later in the game since it scales.
The problem it would create just by allowing rank 2 into rank 1 would jumble the balance it has right now since mages will always have perfect class rolls while clerics or swordies may have impaired ones since their basic class has something that can be used even at the current cap level. Also making dps classes from cleric class trees being reliant on other clerics that actually took some form of support, overall lowering the amount of support clerics we have now.
As of now, although there are many complaints about wiz c1 being pointless on these builds, is probably for the sake of balance since rank 2+ mages outshines pretty much all of the swordies class in both dps and utility. While being weaker than archers in single targets dps, most if not all mages have tons of AoE which most archers don’t.
But the real question is, do we need mages to be even stronger than it already is, considering that;
1.Even with wiz c1, most mages are dominant in higher level in both CC and AoE dps, which is needed for grinding.
2.Magic doesnt miss, and has at least 1.5x the damage per hit of most, if not all swordie classes, not counting magic amplification and AoEs.
3.C1 Linkers, Thaumaturge and Chronomancers have a lot of strong buffs/debuffs( Swell arms, Joint penalty, Quicken, etc) and can be more valuable than most classes of the other basic branches since these are the 1-rank-wonder classes, not even mentioning C2/C3 of these classes with absurd buffs, Thauma C2 +111 phys/magic party wide buff, effectively doubling most 1h weapon stats at that level plus scales with skills since it adds damage before multipliers, which is better than sacrament + maxed blessing.
4.Is viable even when going just 1 rank in most of the classes while other class trees have to throw in a C2 or C3 to be viable, since most of the better skills are in C2/C3.
Theres probably some that I missed out but playing at post 200 even a Cryo or Pyro C3 alone can do more than any swordie/archer/cleric with any combined rank 6 classes in most situations. So I think its really unnecessary for them to get such a luxury, especially since some of us rely heavily on the basic class just being at C1.