Let's look at Support DPS...

[HyoMinPark]

Does every buff have to add damage? Maybe give BRD something unique and new. How about haste? Obviously good enough where it doesn't screw with GCDs.

The only issue with haste is that some jobs will not like it—I believe this would currently apply to NIN, MCH, and DNC. Not sure how SMN and RDM feel about Haste, but I’ve never heard them liking spell speed, so.

It would depend on what haste applies to. Auto-attack would likely be fine. But if it directly affected the GCD like AST’s old Arrow did, it likely wouldn’t be that popular save for with certain jobs.

[CKNovel]

The only issue with haste is that some jobs will not like it—I believe this would currently apply to NIN, MCH, and DNC. Not sure how SMN and RDM feel about Haste, but I’ve never heard them liking spell speed, so.

It would depend on what haste applies to. Auto-attack would likely be fine. But if it directly affected the GCD like AST’s old Arrow did, it likely wouldn’t be that popular save for with certain jobs.

Haste could indeed desynch some rotation, MCH tends to go with a very fixed sks for the best Heat generation and Drill/Air Anchor cooldowns. One good example is that 2.48s GCD is the "norm" but 2.44s GCD is best for Levi to squeeze an extra Air Anchor before the first Maelstrom.
NINs and SAMs have their fixed cooldown at 60s, extra sks would desynch their cooldowns, especially TA.

It would lead to more complex optimization, "What is my best GCD in this fight with this support".

The final goal is to deal damage, so damage is the best kind of support to go without annoying any other jobs.

[Grimoire-M]

Honestly, I’d rather them revert to 4.x BRD, and figure out a way to address the power creep that happened with our passive song support and crit scaling. I’d prefer Repertoire returning to where it could be manipulated once more to add another layer of optimization to the job. I wouldn’t want to see consolidation of DoTs or anything else like that—that’s basically what happened to the healers and their DoTs (sans AST), and no healer likes it (I miss Aero III).

They can keep the current system and instead use Raging Strikes to increase the Repertoire proc rate by 10-25% for its duration without having to risk any nonsense like that again. I’d much rather give SAM/BLM crit scaling procs instead and let BRD lean more into buffing other classes.

[darcstar62]

I can't see them ever adding different effects -- remember SB AST? They decided that "everyone just fishes for Balance anyway" and changed them all to straight damage buffs. (crying in AST)

[Gruntler]

My understanding is that they gutted BRD at ShB launch because they wanted to kill party synergy (as a whole?) and center the new support class (DNC) around the concept as the support class...

Then you're not understanding the situation and if this is your core premise then everything after is going to come out wrong.

They did not want to kill party synergy.

They wanted to kill Nin/Drg/Brd/Sch as the solid meta. They wanted to remove the 'Bard needs Dragoon to work' from the equation, they wanted to remove 'bard is a critwhore so stack crit buff jobs' as the meta. They wanted jobs other than bard to show up in the meta and be accepted as decent in groups for once in this god damn game's life. That's why they didn't abolish synergy, but why they changed the synergies that were specific to the BRD/DRG/NIN/SCH meta.

[AbelArchaniEA]

3/3:

Another idea: Tanks have a toggle ability for enmity generation. This toggle used to be a damage/defense trade-off system based on whether they were trying to pull as MT or just deal damage as OT. What if Support DPS jobs had a similar toggle which cuts their personal damage output but strengthens their otherwise-negligible party buffs? Deactivation of this skill would cancel any active buffs. Such a system would allow Support DPS to shine in parties without blowing the overall damage out of the water, and their default OFF option would be to hold their own in solo content.

Obviously balance is a major concern. Lots of adjustments to potencies, proc rates, and accumulation of the Soul Voice Gauge would need to be made to account for the utility and activity added by changes like these. The majority of complaints I see about ShB BRD are NOT necessarily concerned with keeping high skill potencies, but the fact that the job is just boring, unsatisfying, and not exactly worth playing now with its low overall contributions. That, and we have almost zero control over *how* we support our party.

Well hopefully you feel better now..... or you just wasted a bunch of time ranting

[LtPlebberoni]

I'm seeing some good logic in this thread that never even crossed my mind, especially from what Gruntler was saying--I actually didn't piece together that the current system makes things more fair for every job.

Annnd, oof... To clarify where I stand, since I did come across as a jackass in the OP:
My intent isn't to be a poopoo ranting with a closed mind. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't have posted on an active forum dedicated to discussing the very thing I'm providing feedback on. Yes, I wanted to express my own frustrations toward BRD's identity shift, but my goal here is to get a better understanding of the current systems that are in place from people who have more extensive knowledge of the game/other classes than I do. With that, I'm looking to bounce ideas back and forth, even if it won't result in any actual job redesign.
I apologize; The way I chose to word things came off as more "ragey" than the "comically miffed" look that I was aiming for, and it likely drove away good potential for the discussion I was looking for.