People wanting a support class. Why?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gman1311

mostly because hunt hunting buffs aren’t that great, plus you got to stop what you’re doing and play a song.

---

[unrelated to FFxiv now]

negating hearing and wind effects arent great? no stamina loss isnt great? Also, if your HH user was standing off to the side to play songs, they're playing it wrong.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gurney

What did you think RDM was in 11, only reason it was so good was on what subjob you used.

---

Never played ff11.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vivi_Bushido

Then I play games like Monster Hunter and see very few people actually role the Hunting Horn. The support job of that game. I always feel like it's one of those things where it's something people think they want but won't actually enjoy it when they get it; because it won't turn out to be their vision of it.

---

Monster hunter Is a very different game though as there is no roles
HH has support aspect but it's not a support role
Plus MH "hardcore" community is solo TA's so no surprise why HH is least popular choice

Don't be a corner horner no different to a red mage that only uses vercure and raise

Wow, haven't seen this thread topic in a long time. /yawn

"Jack of all trades, master of none" should be read as "Utterly Worthless, pointless to bring". We've had this conversation like 5 years ago. I can look into my post history and see the exact same arguments, the exact same counter-arguments.

In short. The answer is No.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vivi_Bushido

Then I play games like Monster Hunter and see very few people actually role the Hunting Horn. The support job of that game. I always feel like it's one of those things where it's something people think they want but won't actually enjoy it when they get it; because it won't turn out to be their vision of it.

---

HH also follows quite a bit of the same logic as a hammer - needs very good understanding of how the monster will turn, keeping track of stagger thresholds and positioning needs to be on point. Then add in the requirement of knowing when you have enough recovery for playing songs in between attacks and not getting smacked in the face. The fact that a lot of HH users I do see are well away from the monster and dooting means they don't have a very firm grasp of the weapon to actually play it well. Like watching a charge blader never use guard points, dual swords never use demon dance, insect glaives that seem to want to stay in the air, bows that don't understand critical range, etc, etc, etc. They're effectively the healer that only heals and never touches a damage spell even as they stand there for a few GCDs. They'll mostly suffice, outside of ultimates and savages, but that doesn't mean they're good.

Someone who actually plays HH is like having someone that actually plays hammer - they stand out and make runs super smooth and fast with the sheer amount of staggers and buffs.

I don't know if you ever played EQ (Everquest), but the bard class in that game a pure support. They would weave songs together for supportive buffs (running speed, dmg up, mana regen, hp regen, faster cast times, etc ..). They had some offensive songs just powerful enough to get by in solo grinds, but they shined in a group.

The closest things we have to an EQ bard in ffxiv is dancer atm, and it only buffs dmg and run speed technically.
Reasons why I want a pure Support:
- it fits my play style very well.
- there are no damage meters built into the game and I play on ps4, so my drive to be competitive as a dps job is pretty low.
- healing in ffxiv is meh at best, it is just another dps that happens to heal when you have bad tanks/dps.
- tanking in ffxiv is just boring to me
- I like making other people shine in my groups

The amount of negativity in this thread really baffles me.

There's nothing in this game that wouldn't allow for proper support roles. No, we don't need crowd control, but we can still use buffs/debuffs, off heals, and other support staples to give an edge. While some of that is spread across various jobs in limited capacity, building an entire job around it (what Bard, Dancer, and Red Mage should have been) is long overdue. Dancer comes close, but it's still not quite where it needs to be to be a full-on support class; Curing Waltz needs a buff, Shield Samba's CD is too long, and its needless proc-based attacks could be easily swapped for far more useful debuffs.

Damage? Just give them the same basic attacks healers have, and rescale numbers to reduce the burden on the lower count of DPS players per duty. It's not rocket science.

As for the dreaded "but then they'll be required!": guess what? That already happens in savage raids/EX trials. Some jobs are greatly favored, and others are unwanted. Adding a support role wouldn't change that.

Heaven forbid we add some complexity back and streamline DPS jobs by shifting support skills to the classes that should have them instead. With healers being an absolute gutted mess right now, players like me that prefer to aid the party instead of raw damage (which, for me, is incredibly bland) have very little in the way of viable alternative options.

*sighs...

I do miss the support side that Bards had. :(

It was so much fun and I'm like others who do feel the satisfaction of helping others pushing their numbers a bit higher. Oh well.... got to get use to what it became now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nyxn607

I don't know if you ever played EQ (Everquest), but the bard class in that game a pure support. They would weave songs together for supportive buffs (running speed, dmg up, mana regen, hp regen, faster cast times, etc ..). They had some offensive songs just powerful enough to get by in solo grinds, but they shined in a group.

---

You're forgetting AoE- and Charmkiting. Effectively a high skill low ping bard was also the most efficient solo class, s an addition to being one of the most sought after classes for groups and raids ^^ Not even starting with utilities like Highsun, fading memories etc. By todays standards the class was just completely broken. Did you ever see a warrior who could not even solo single green cons complain about bards being OP? No one cared about balance, that's what made the game great nd the classes unique. That just wouldn't fly anymore in today's MMO enviroment.

A Bard's song is suppose to invigorate and motivate others who hears it to fight harder. That was the whole point behind their job story quests, right? :(

So...

Feels like we're humming to ourselves and others are going, "What?! We can't hear you!"

I feel like making the ranged DPS role an actual support oriented DPS role, then we wouldn’t need to have this conversation. Right now it’s the ‘do lower DPS than melee’ role. And that’s with rDPS added.

I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ll never get more support options. I’d wouldn’t be surprised if they just stop adding utility to any job from now, because the sad truth is that there just isn’t enough demand. Nobody cares about abilities that don’t deal direct damage, not enough for them to seriously consider the role of utility in Ffxiv. It’s so rare to see a Bard using Minne, or a Dancer using Curing Waltz of Improvisation. Because ultimately if they don’t deal damage, nobody will use them (unless you want to be called bad), especially if we ever get a support ability that’s not an oGCD (which currently does not exist on any job as far as I’m aware). It’s a total overreaction I know, but at the same time, I do find myself with very little faith that ‘utility’ will ever be more than a side thought in FFXIV

Naturally this applies to all healers as well. I’m coming across more and more Astrologians that just don’t use cards anymore. At all. Scholar only has a single button that doesn’t heal or damage the target (directly or indirectly), and if it had even one more I doubt we’d see it used often unless it was a direct damage increase. And White Mages have no party utility anyway outside of Temperance which - surprise, surprise - I see is considered either weak or useless.

Not gonna lie, it kinda makes me want to just stop playing. I know every reply in this thread is going to be a ‘lol later loser’ now, but still, there comes a point where a playstyle gets so watered down that it doesn’t exist anymore. I’m not saying that I won’t play the game if there’s no a full support role because obviously that’s unrealistic. But the jobs that did satisfyingly represent a ‘support’ role in FFXIV have been watered down and simplified To the point they no longer represent that playstyle. And if you’re not interested in other playstyles, your only real option is to play a different game, which is kinda depressing

Support class would be cruise control for end game. No need to vie for a raid spot among other dps only to be nerfed one patch or another. With a pure support class groups will need you regardless.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Miu-Tiiu

A Bard's song is suppose to invigorate and motivate others who hears it to fight harder. That was the whole point behind their job story quests, right? :(

---

I just remembered this xD

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0004.html

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RoyalBeef

I just remembered this xD

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0004.html

---

HEY!!!

At least he tried.... :p

Quote:

---

Support class would be cruise control for end game. No need to vie for a raid spot among other dps only to be nerfed one patch or another. With a pure support class groups will need you regardless.

---

Maybe.

Pure supports work in games theyre designed to work in, with raid sizes designed around having support classes.

You'd have to provide MASSIVE buffs/debuffs to get a spot, because they sure as hell wont let you run 1 tank or 1 healer, which means you'd always be competing for that DPS spot.

Right now, its about a ~23% damage increase for the entire fight before a support becomes more valuable than any dps'er. If you had healer level damage, its still a total increase of 13% you'd have to provide, meaning you'd have to provide more than 5 times the damage from your support abilities a dancer does in order to provide dancer level rdps.

In groups, that baloons significantly beyond what a support could possibly provide.


For comparison, supports in games where raid groups can be 5 dps + healer, a support class filling one of the dps spots needs to provide 8-10% to pull even with rdps (and do significantly more than that, which is why you basically stack dps groups with bards when you can recruit bards, because bards are fantastic in basically every mmo except 14).

Oddly enough, there are people in this world who enjoy playing differently than, say, you. Or me. Or that guy/girl over there. This doesn't mean they are bad or they should not be allowed to play that way. It doesn't mean the jobs they like shouldn't exist. I don't like to tank, does that mean no one should like it? Wouldn't be much of a game then, would it?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Machi_Machiavelli

Support class would be cruise control for end game. No need to vie for a raid spot among other dps only to be nerfed one patch or another. With a pure support class groups will need you regardless.

---

They neither should nor would have to be.

I want supports. I also want them to have to be just as good at their jobs as anyone else in order to have a spot in a raid. And as support tools get increasingly inflexible at their rDPS contribution less reliable or direct, the more it's possible for support to be significant to both numeric output and gameplay (i.e. without leaving supports as just rDPS bots with no real skill gap of their own).

I speak only for myself but it'd be nice if the 4th healer is entirely based on support and utility, specially since that other healer was gutted of theirs. I mained a holy priest in WoW, I have more than enough experience in being borderline useless on my own if it means I'm viable or even desired in group content.

I don't see a full support class ever working in this game. They could try to be crazy with stuff the dps have though. Like give SAM a taunt that forces aggro on them and auto deflects the next hit before returning the aggro to the one that had it before(sam gain no extra hate from this). With this SAM can eat a tank buster for the tanks or if they gave it a X amount of dmg or Y seconds condition they can "tank" for a few seconds too.

In all honesty, something like that would be loved by top end players and probably hated by the lower end one as people just randomly use it(i can see this messing up DRKs seeing as it's basically TBN for SAM). Healers having such a focus on dealing dmg makes them more "support" compared to something like DNC anyway.

We are to late in the game to re design the triforce, maybe after 7.0 and the next MMO they drop they can do it. To introduce a pure support clause would take rehauling every single thing from front to back and that's a waste of money on the grand scale of things. Right now the focus should be on fine tuning, closing the story out and blowing all the budget on a bigger better MMO that has the staying power because it was built on a better engine.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Miles064

I don't see a full support class ever working in this game.

---

It did work...back in ARR. It was called Bard. It was a guaranteed slot in every party.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

It did work...back in ARR. It was called Bard. It was a guaranteed slot in every party.

---

Isn't having a class be a "guaranteed slot" one of the reasons they changed things in the first place? NIN? DRG with MCH/BRD? I admit I wasnt playing this game in ARR so I don't know what kind of kit BRD used to have but I still consider it a solid support due to non dmg skills. Debuff cleanse, Dmg res, and a heal buff and they still have a party dmg boosting skill. All DNC has is a weak heal and the same dmg res the other ranged have. The dmg buff DNC gives isn't even something you really have to think about either. Standard/Tech Step are dmg skills that are used almost always on cd so if you removed the dmg buff they would be used the same way for the most part. With BRD you need to go out of your way to use them well. That seem exactly like a support to me.

I guess what I'm asking is kinda what the op asked. What exactly would be a support that isn't already in game now?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Miles064

Isn't having a class be a "guaranteed slot" one of the reasons they changed things in the first place? NIN? DRG with MCH/BRD? I admit I wasnt playing this game in ARR so I don't know what kind of kit BRD used to have but I still consider it a solid support due to non dmg skills. Debuff cleanse, Dmg res, and a heal buff and they still have a party dmg boosting skill. All DNC has is a weak heal and the same dmg res the other ranged have. The dmg buff DNC gives isn't even something you really have to think about either. Standard/Tech Step are dmg skills that are used almost always on cd so if you removed the dmg buff they would be used the same way for the most part. With BRD you need to go out of your way to use them well. That seem exactly like a support to me.

I guess what I'm asking is kinda what the op asked. What exactly would be a support that isn't already in game now?

---

Back in ARR, Mage's Ballad gave an MP regen to the party in exchange for your MP and 10% of your damage. Army's Paean did the same for TP in exchange for your MP and 10% of your damage. We also had the ability to bind enemies, slow them, put heavy on them (I believe), and silence them. That was it, since damage resistance, debuff cleanse, and heal buff were added much later, and Battle Voice back then increased the potencies of the regens so you got more resources out of the deal.

We were pretty much the support back when they had mechanics that required CC or just for keeping the party's resources up since fights could run quite long back then. They cut back on the amount of support needed ever since, with us losing some of the support in SB, and completely losing our MP regen and TP regen (not that it's needed anymore) when ShB started. With that in mind, they can't really do anything with support anymore these days. They've taken all the ways that can be supported and threw them out the window for the most part, leaving people to be self-sufficient for resources and whatnot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Back in ARR, Mage's Ballad gave an MP regen to the party in exchange for your MP and 10% of your damage. Army's Paean did the same for TP in exchange for your MP and 10% of your damage. We also had the ability to bind enemies, slow them, put heavy on them (I believe), and silence them. That was it, since damage resistance, debuff cleanse, and heal buff were added much later, and Battle Voice back then increased the potencies of the regens so you got more resources out of the deal.

We were pretty much the support back when they had mechanics that required CC or just for keeping the party's resources up since fights could run quite long back then. They cut back on the amount of support needed ever since, with us losing some of the support in SB, and completely losing our MP regen and TP regen (not that it's needed anymore) when ShB started. With that in mind, they can't really do anything with support anymore these days. They've taken all the ways that can be supported and threw them out the window for the most part, leaving people to be self-sufficient for resources and whatnot.

---

That does sound interesting. I agree it wouldn't really work with the way the game is set up now though. It's too bad really, I lean towards hybrid dps in pretty much every mmo I play so I can dps and support if needed. I guess at this point we can hope the next healer they make is leans heavier on the non dmg up supports skills, though I wouldn't know how they would do it with the current game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Back in ARR, Mage's Ballad gave an MP regen to the party in exchange for your MP and 10% of your damage. Army's Paean did the same for TP in exchange for your MP and 10% of your damage. We also had the ability to bind enemies, slow them, put heavy on them (I believe), and silence them. That was it, since damage resistance, debuff cleanse, and heal buff were added much later, and Battle Voice back then increased the potencies of the regens so you got more resources out of the deal.

---

Technically, we kind of had damage down at the start, in the form of Rain of Death, which at one point reduced enemy damage dealt -- usable as a last-ditch (we know the tank will die without this) mitigation tool for Twintania's tankbusters. After being turned into an oGCD procced by River of Blood rather than soft-comboed off of Wide Volley (which was in turn combo'ed soft-comboed off of Quick Nock), it was changed to Evasion down, used when the team had to stack in front of the boss as to still guarantee hits despite the DPS playing at flank-accuracy cap rather than a tank's front-accuracy cap. I miss all that.

Sidenote: Pre-nerf double-Bard was absurd in ARR, to a degree simultaneously deserving nostalgia (I was a Bard main back then) and disgust (I wanted to play Monk, too, and that was a non-option while Bard was pulling as big of numbers).