Petition: Add A Support Role To The Game.

[Anayrie]

I would love the see the re-emergence of support classes in MMOs. The best fun I had in FFXI was playing Bard and in all my mmo history I've always enjoyed playing heals or support.

The most perfect FF support classes that baffles me that hasn't been made yet is the Time Mage. Slow, haste, levitate, bind. I loved the idea of Time Mages and they had dd spells too that could make them a playable job.

The way bards worked in FFXI was much more fun to me, running to this place to give your melee a buff, then running back over here to give your mages one. Yell at the one mage who insists of dpsing with the melee guys.

With how CNJ is I really hope they add in a Geomancer, and with that there could be more CC abilities like root plus the sleep they get.

[Dano]

i can see this work if they bring in 6 man party contents in the future otherwise it's not too good in the current 4 man party format

[frostmagemari]

Adding a pure support role is the worst thing that could happen to the game. The only thing you get with a support role is one of two things..

A. It's buffs are balanced (or underpowered) and the party would rather have another DPS
B. It's buffs are over-powered and it would be essentially a party staple to have that class in the group (Just look at any flavour of the month support that XI had, if a support was good that patch, it was guaranteed a party spot because of it's usefulness.

[Nahara]

Nearly all fights are possible without a damage LB but there's no boss fight in the game where someone is going to say "no thanks" to a 5-18k spike in damage(that's only ST LB. Don't really know the numbers for magic LB but you get the point).

Obviously no one wants to pass up the damage spike, but though the magic of the Duty Finder it's still possible that you're gonna be presented with a group that lacks one.

[Reiterpallasch]

Just look at any flavour of the month support that XI had, if a support was good that patch, it was guaranteed a party spot because of it's usefulness.

BRD was pretty much flavor of the decade. It was always, 100% of the time better to have a BRD take a party slot than a dps for nearly the entirety of the game. If you could get 2 BRDs per slot, it was better yet (not including BRD rotations for zerg content, of course).

Oh march songs, how I miss you.

[Alhanelem]

Every job has to be capable of at least light DPS or they won't be viable solo (and thus disproportionately more difficult to level up in a game where parties are not a big part of leveling up) and will have other content they won't be useful in.

Any support class is going to be like BRD- Doing damage and having that damage output decreased while providing support effects. Also if they added a fourth distinct role it would just make party matching that much harder, as it would be the new least popular role.

[Entropic]

Theres no need for that.

[MartaDemireux]

i can see this work if they bring in 6 man party contents in the future otherwise it's not too good in the current 4 man party format

Would work with 4 as well. It's no different than a BRD filling a slot presently, just makes it so there aren't two of them through Duty Finder.

The mechanics of each individual dps means absolutely nothing to a group. ... only the top dps would ever get invited.

People don't take a DRG for its Slow/Piercing defense reduction or a MNK for its Dispel/Blunt defense+INT reduction; they don't bring them because BRD and SMN can do equal or better DPS from a distance, with movement and/or to multiple targets. However they do bring one for their DPS LB (usually MNK so it doesn't get killed jumping). Some jobs will perform better in some fights (BLM/SMN in Ifrit) and some will perform better in others (BRD/MNK in Titan), it's something you just need to accept. The mechanics actually mean just about everything, BLM without its would have to rely on BRD for MP, WHM without free cures would fall into the same boat, SCH without Aether stacks would too. MNK wouldn't gain Greased Lightning, BRD wouldn't sing or would be OP without a hit to DMG or would be weak with the loss of Bloodletter system and free movement... you get the idea.

On an aside: You can't choose your DPS while Duty Finding anyway, which this is primarily about.

Adding a pure support role

I'm not asking for that. Essentially I'm asking for all DPS (current and future) that do not have a DPS LB to queue in a different slot than other DPS. This prevents the loss of a DPS LB and also gives a total of 4 different LBs to the group. It also eases the queue time for standard DPS (which is already high and will get higher with more DPS jobs coming in the future) assuming the tanks are there. It does this by allowing the 4 man to fill with 2DPS or 1 DPS+1Support (which is still a DPS but loses some DPS while supporting or has low DPS but the PT gains it by supporting) or an 8 man to fill with 4DPS, 1 Support+3DPS or 2DPS and 2Support.

through the magic of the Duty Finder it's still possible that you're gonna be presented with a group that lacks one.

And that should never be the case and needs to be addressed. I've grouped up for Ifrit before and have gotten all BRDs. No DPS LB at all. 4 Nails to kill. People wearing content level appropriate gear. We didn't win but it was no surprise.

Splitting the damage dealer group in two isn't going to fix people not wanting to be healers or tanks. In fact, if you really think about it, it may make the problem worse, since now you have to pull people from four different role groups instead of three.

This is why I'm suggesting that Duty Finder fills in 2 fashions. If 1 Tank, 1 Heal, 2 DPS are found, it will fill. However if 1 Support is found before the 2nd DPS, it will still fill. At the best, it will shorten DPS queue times as it will at bare minimum be spacing out the BRDs for additional DPS to get in. If someone, for whatever reason, really didn't want to run with a support they could drop from the queue after seeing that position fill and requeue. Of course another way to fix the issue would be to give BRD a DPS LB but that thematically doesn't make sense or they could restrict Duty Finder to just having 1 BRD per party but again that won't really solve the issue in the future with other DPS jobs that may not get a DPS LB.

Also if they added a fourth distinct role it would just make party matching that much harder, as it would be the new least popular role.

Defintitely agree on your first part but as seen (at least personally) in the current game, BRD is probably the most popular job right now. They get snatched up super fast and clog Duty Finder with their non-DPS LB selves. I've never seen a person shout a 2nd time when needing a BRD. I have seen shouts asking for no BRDs because they had too many already.

(The following quotes are for posts made after this original post. The site is glitching and apparently thinks this one post was posted 20 times)

FFXIV's BRD is popular because it is powerful, not specifically because it has support abilities. Yes, the support abilities are useful and I love having them around for it, but most people don't specifically pick out BRD because it has support abilties.

Look at FFXI.

IF BRD was changed to be totally support and have minimal damage capability, a ton of people would abandon the job- Heck people are already threatening to abandon it over BRD getting the nerf bat (and we don't even know exactly what's going to happen yet), which shows why people like BRD.

Oh I'm entirely aware of FFXI, played it for 10 years. This isn't FFXI though.

People always get over dramatic when it comes to nerfs. The fact is SE won't and can't entirely nerf BRDs DPS into the ground, they'll still have to be relevant to bring along outside of their songs as their songs drop their DPS even lower. In the current game they'll also still fill 2 slots in a DF party so they will have to be able pull their own. They'll also still have to be able to solo just as efficiently as any other job.

[Alhanelem]

Defintitely agree on your first part but as seen (at least personally) in the current game, BRD is probably the most popular job right now.

FFXIV's BRD is popular because it is powerful, not specifically because it has support abilities. Yes, the support abilities are useful and I love having them around for it, but most people don't specifically pick out BRD because it has support abilties.

Look at FFXI- the full-on support role jobs were the least played in the game? Why? support is boring to most people. The people that do play them do so mostly because it makes them wanted- resulting in them becoming the bottleneck. in FFXI's heyday, being BRD always got you a party in 2 seconds- it even got to the point where BRDs were charging for the privilige of being in a party with them, that's how few of them there were. IF BRD was changed to be totally support and have minimal damage capability, a ton of people would abandon the job- Heck people are already threatening to abandon it over BRD getting the nerf bat (and we don't even know exactly what's going to happen yet), which shows why people like BRD.

[silentwindfr]

don't forget one point, with the 2.1 dungeon will become the best way to level up, add a support role will not be that hard to level up.
a lot of class, jobs... can be added as support, the red mage, by example, can fill this role... be a support don't means only buff, it means be able to help the group...

that can be by buffing the group, debuffing the enemy, be able to help the healer, or even tank add instead of a secondary tank.