FFXIV and Party Setup.

This is not FFXI, and I am so very glad that SE decided to share support abilities across many other classes, from tank, dps to healer. Otherwise, DF would be beyond terrible with the waiting time for support to join. If you think tank and healer are already hard to find, wait till they add support on the mix. It would be near impossible for any DPS to do their daily duty roulette. The way the game function now, all classes can contribute to buff and debuffs abilities. DPS are not just spam attack buttons but you MUST understand how your class is played. No need for full time support job in this game, ever...

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

DPS are not just spam attack buttons but you MUST understand how your class is played.

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Not really. I mean, sure it'll benefit you to know your rotations, but 'MUST' implies you simply cannot DPS without them, which is an outright falsity. You can DPS just fine, just not as well as those using optimal rotations.

Actually, that word 'rotation' brings up the one thing which dulls this game more so than other MMO's of it's type and is the very REASON why support jobs would be a benefit more than a detriment. Every gods-forsaken player is tasked with doing the same thing as every other player of the same class. There's very little, if any, wiggle room. You're a monk? Great. Use those very specific combos in that very specific order in those very specific positions. You're a Dragoon? Great. Use those very specific combos in that very specific order in those...

...you see the point? If not, well those rose-tinted shades must be welded on by now. We need something to break up the status-quo and add some dynamic options to the game. One of the reasons I tank and heal more than DPS is because it's a bit more unpredictable (the other is queue times). But even those fall foul of routine after the hundredth dungeon run.

Of course, because it would break up the status-quo is the exact reason we're never likely to see it. SE seem intent on keeping things rather vanilla throughout when they should be focusing on adding more flavours to the game at this point. Hopefully Heavenward will shake things up and get the ball rolling in the right direction.

What the game needs to do is add more support abilities for all current classes.

A pure trinity of DPS, Tank, Healer for everything is extremely limiting. I for one would welcome the addition of support style classes. Giving DDs a support ability is not the same. The support class is an entire style of gameplay that was removed from XIV.

If you gave say mnk more support abilities... their main job is still a Damage Dealer.... not a support. Alot of people do not want to be a DD/Healer/Tank they want to be support. Try going brd into final coil and put all the focus into the support role and hit 60-100dps and watch how quick your party kicks you out for being "Subpar". It is what people do not understand, combining multiple job types into 1 job is a BAD THING!!!

SE just needs to make it where support classes are NOT needed to clear content so the ques do not go crazy long. This is another huge issue with finder... it forces this strict dd, tank, healer crap. IT is what was great about older mmos you could actually accomplish things with many variations of setups.

AS for support jobs having a harder time solo... who cares, you have chocobos. WHM is already subpar to Smn when it comes to soloing do not see them complaining.

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Originally Posted by JimboTCB

Rift had "support" as a dedicated party role, and it was pretty great. Especially as nobody liked doing it so you basically got to play as DPS but with much smaller queue times :)

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I miss my days as a beastmaster support type job in rift. No one really liked playing it but it had some nice buffs. The one that gave the entire raid 30% extra health was pretty nice and etc.
When i started to out dps the normal dps, the raid leader would yell at them: "Dammit! The support job is kicking your arse, step it up!"

LOL

Machinist is planned as a Support/DPS job

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Originally Posted by Xatsh

WHM is already subpar to Smn when it comes to soloing do not see them complaining.

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DPS job have it always easier with soloing than healers

Even during 1.0, while Tanaka was still on board, there was no pure support class. Sure, it was possible to build something like a support class with cross skills, but there was no support class at default. Like in ARR every class had their own handfull support skills.

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Originally Posted by Felis

Machinist is planned as a Support/DPS job

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Specifically a "DPS job with support"
Which means they'll be bards with guns and robots instead of bows and music. An over generalization, but that's the basic idea.
They toss a bunch of support abilities on the ranged melee classes to compensate for the fact that they need to neuter their DPS to keep them "competitive" with melee and caster DPS. RPGs do this a lot and it gets kind of perplexing when a dude deals more damage punching someone in the face than someone else does shooting them with a gun.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

What the game needs to do is add more support abilities for all current classes.

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This is DEFINITELY going to be happening, as it's easier to add new support toys to classes than to interfere with the attack chains.
I'm calling it now: People will be complaining about the lack of new attack abilities for certain classes in 3.0. BRD will likely get new attacks and BLM is already stated to be getting an overhaul (mostly due to being so streamlined they can't add anything meaningful to the class), but expect DRG, MNK, and WAR to get new support abilities (with WAR getting a new CD and something else to use with Defiance up)

And here we go again, people don't seem to understand that the classes and jobs are balanced around end game i,e coil now and Alexander in heavensward, support based classes as someone said means something has to give and usually a fight must have a support or doesn't which renders the ROLE useless.

Having a fight that must require a support is horrible, not in terms of content design but for recruitment, every mmo I have played, a dedicated support was the rarest to find, more so then a tank.

If you do not need a support, then why bother, a group that takes end game properly wont take a useless role.

'IT is what was great about older mmos you could actually accomplish things with many variations of setups.'

And those games have very basic fights and unbalanced classes and boring structure in the fights, they don't allow for more complex mechanics that allows all classes to be viable in the content.

[QUOTE=raelgun;2886234]snip [QUOTE]

""" bu... but in FFXI / VIII / Pong / who cares / we did have support roles then we need one in ARR! ""

This is a right answer. Those FF14 fights are designed to be very dynamic and challenging with no room for a support class. I speak about 8 man end game content. In 24 man you could probably queue as a Goldsmith so whatever... and outside of raid activites support jobs will be hard to include into 4 man dungeons, PvP and solo stuff.

This is probably why SE split the support activities between the other jobs making them way more interesting. This is regardless of what you got in 15 years old outdated games - thanks God

One of the major issues with a support class is the 4/8 man party structure. How do you make a support class strong enough to not hold down a 4 man run, but not ungodly overpowered in an 8 man?