Tank Roles, DPS Roles, Healer Roles... No Support Roles?

[Lyein]

Support is spread out across nearly all jobs. A little slow here, a little protect there. I find that a lot more useful than a designated support class (and remember that cross-classing allows a person to specialize more in support by picking up those support skills). The way it is set up you can have 8 people run into a room and in three turns bang out 12 buff/debuff skills. Insofar as debuffs go, I'm very satisfied.

I only wish we had more pre-game buffs like protect to pass around. Maybe they'll add those in with a new level cap or additional jobs. Anyone else hopeful that the two jobs for one class thing is going to get passed around beyond Arcanist?

[Duelle]

I only wish we had more pre-game buffs like protect to pass around. Maybe they'll add those in with a new level cap or additional jobs.

Primary stat buffs are usually in that category, but XIV blended those in through the mere presence of a class in your party (and was also to encourage people to make balanced parties instead of stacking classes).

My point is, the vast majority of FF games do not have a dedicated support job, such as what's being asked for in this thread. Typically, support is a secondary role of black mage or white mage. No, support roles are not as big a part of the FF franchise as the Crystals. They're more like the Buster Sword: Some FF games have it. The majority do not.

Someone that gets it.

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The HMS Support sailed when Yoshida made Bard sprout from the archer class, resulting in the ranged DPS with group cooldowns we currently have.

A class entirely dedicated to buffing and debuffing doesn't work in a modern MMORPG, as the game and playerbase lack the dynamics seen in the old EQ days where you could justify a class that no one liked playing. Let's not pretend it was different in FFXI, because it was not; "support" classes have always been unpopular when the entire class is built on buff/debuffs, have always been seriously outnumbered by people who played other roles and as such had an insane amount of pull and leverage in groups (the culmination of this disgusting display being FFXI's princess Bard and princess Red Mage).