Anyone else wish RDM was a PURE support class?

[Jerbob]

To me, support has never fit the job's aesthetic. A guy in medium armor with a sword in hand that is able to cast spells is not what you picture when you think of support.

Definitely agree that RDM as a support job doesn't fit. All I was trying to say is that, given two options that both completely don't fit (XIV's RDM being a nuker vs. a hypothetical XIV RDM support job), I'd prefer the doesn't-fit Support to the doesn't-fit Nuker, just for gameplay reasons. Of course the best solution by a mile is to have neither, but sadly SE seem to be intent on ignoring that.

It's not fun to sit around with a gut feeling that they've messed up but you're not going to find out for real until June.

I know, it's horrible isn't it.

Considering how Balance is seen as OP because of what it does to DPS output, I think if anything it proves that you can't have a buff oriented class because it becomes a mainstay for progression, and that trickles down to the people doing Sastasha for the first time. I'm sure your resident DRG/MNK/SAM/BLM would hate to get benched in favor of whatever buffbot ends up getting implemented. And that's not taking into account the potential for drama (see: princess BRDs and princess RDMs in FFXI).

I think part of the problem here is that AST is primarily a healer with added skills on top. You can choose the healer that boosts damage output, or the one that doesn't - there's a clear optimal choice. Replacing a damage dealing job with a support job is a different matter - you can choose the job that deals damage, or the job that boosts it. The end result is still just damage.

I know that's oversimplifying to an extent, but I think the principle is sound.

I agree that there's a big question regarding whether SE are capable of balancing a support job so that it "counts" as one DD job regardless of the context it's in. There are certainly ways of limiting the amount of "buffs per second" a job is capable of throwing out, but it might take some creativity, and I'm not sure SE are willing to be creative at this point. If they can balance support jobs to be roughly equivalent to another DD job, though, then there won't be any demand for support - it'll be another playstyle, not another role.

[Duelle]

I think part of the problem here is that AST is primarily a healer with added skills on top. You can choose the healer that boosts damage output, or the one that doesn't - there's a clear optimal choice. Replacing a damage dealing job with a support job is a different matter - you can choose the job that deals damage, or the job that boosts it. The end result is still just damage.

I'd say it's more that they tried to use the buffs as an incentive to bring the job, but because buffs easily fall into that trap of being either useless or overpowered, we have the current problem.

As much as some hated the buff overlaps in WoW, I do know why they went that direction. For example, priests had a raid buff that lasted 60 minutes that increased the max HP of everyone in the raid. Except priests aren't the only healers in the game (since at the time you had resto druids, resto shaman and holy paladins), so the devs gave warlocks an aura buff called Demonic Pact that gave the exact same effect to everyone in the raid when the warlock had their imp summoned (the effects, however, would not stack). So even if you didn't have any priest healers in your raid, you had a decent chance of having that buff covered if you brought a warlock with you.

To put it into the current context, imagine if the devs calculated average uptime/DPS increase of Balance and gave SMN an aura that increased damage dealt based on that data when they have Ifrit-egi active, but anyone under the aura's effect cannot receive the benefits of Balance (if AST were to use it, the target players would receive no effect). In theory, your raid is no longer forced to bring AST and you're not kicking WHM to the curb because your buff is covered if you have a SMN in the group. Some may bring up the snag in my suggestion since Balance comes about via RNG, but I'd smugly reply that that's why adding RNG mechanics of that nature is generally a bad idea.