Anyone else wish RDM was a PURE support class?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

FFXIV will never have a pure support job because people wouldn't take them. A one dimensional focus is why Paladin and White Mage suffer right now.

[Kaethra]

FFXIV will never have a pure support job because people wouldn't take them. A one dimensional focus is why Paladin and White Mage suffer right now.

That's not entirely true. Bards and Enchanters in both EQ's prove that singular focus on support roles is extremely desirable. But we'd need to ditch the 4man group model. Which I support. 8 man group as the base would fix the DPS queues across all datacenters.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

That's not entirely true. Bards and Enchanters in both EQ's prove that singular focus on support roles is extremely desirable. But we'd need to ditch the 4man group model. Which I support. 8 man group as the base would fix the DPS queues across all datacenters.

Key word: Everquest

FFXIV is not designed to have pure support roles. The whole healer DPS meta exists because of how damage focused this game is. Increasing the role requirements doesn't change anything. Praetorium and Castrum have 8 people. And what happens? Speed runs since it's a cakewalk. Even the 24 man raids slot five DPS because their one attempt at double tanks (Labyrinths) severely hindered queue times and gave the off tank nothing to do.

[Zojha]

The whole healer DPS meta exists because of how damage focused this game is.

Almost every game is like that >_> Some just hide it better than others. The simplicity of FFXIV doesn't leave much cover.

Anywhoo - A pure support IS possible. You can put it in the DPS slot and then balance it in such a way that the total damage contribution via buffs/debuffs is equivalent to any other DPS. Math allows for such.

The issues however are the following:
- You need to make assumptions about the other team members that may or may not be true (skill level, healer DPSing etc) when balancing the skills, causing them to be better or worse than intended if the team is better/worse than assumed. This is the big hurdle.
- You need to make the support skills scale with gear to make it fit with the progression system of the game
- You need to account for group size, as group buffs and debuffs scale with group size

I have doubts that it would be worth the effort. When I look at Monk, they seem to have trouble just balancing regular support abilities against each other, so... yeah. If they made a support job, it'd probably turn out a mess one way or the other.

[basketofseals]

FFXIV will never have a pure support job because people wouldn't take them. A one dimensional focus is why Paladin and White Mage suffer right now.

That really isn't the problem with those jobs. That issue is nothing except those two do less damage than their counterparts. If balance got removed, I'd bet you see people drop AST like a hot potato.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

snip

That would be a fundamental change to XIV's design, hence by previous point. Adding to your list, any pure support job would need to be constantly applying buffs and outpace the damage another dedicated DPS offers. None of this accounts for people's willingness to play it. Unfortunately, non-damaging type jobs aren't popular in any game. Even if they were willing to change how the current system works, I agree, it'd likely wind up a mess.

That really isn't the problem with those jobs. That issue is nothing except those two do less damage than their counterparts. If balance got removed, I'd bet you see people drop AST like a hot potato.

Ehh. You'd be surprised. Although Balance is the biggest problem, the other cards still bring a utility White Mage simply cannot match. They have a single niche: raw healing. It doesn't work because both Astro and Scholar can heal through all content without skipping a beat while providing significantly better utility.

[basketofseals]

Ehh. You'd be surprised. Although Balance is the biggest problem, the other cards still bring a utility White Mage simply cannot match. They have a single niche: raw healing. It doesn't work because both Astro and Scholar can heal through all content without skipping a beat while providing significantly better utility.

But ASTs were preferably put to the side before Balance's super buff. What makes now different? I was under the impression that WHM's healer heavy toolkit simply allowed them to deal more damage than AST since non-balance cards are unreliable garbage.