Why are Melee and ranged DPS roles mostly support and not focused on damage?

[Sunako]

Well for me as summoner.

Swiftcast = more mobility = boost dps
lucid dreaming = more mana = more ruin 3 casts over ruin 1 = more dps
addle = more wyrmwave triggers = more dps
surecast = very situational but very good in fights like exdeath = less running (knockback immunity) = more cast time = more dps
mana shift = during foe use it on bard so foe last longer and more group dps.

Atleast for me role skills boost my dps.

Drain is really good for solo content I soloed titan extreme thanks for that skill, break is only heavy we have so it is probably needed for some mechanics in future. For healers if you need stall mana somehow you can use break because of zero mana cost. I have seen some jp healers use that while solo healing o4s. It is better cast something than afk while mana is recovering.

[thegreatonemal]

Arms length is amazing for keeping uptime, feint is to be used with physical tank busters. the skills are fine and have their uses depending on the fight change them around as needed very few of the abilities aren't meant to be used in every single fight that's kind of the point.

[Aomine1992]

i think mandatory wouldn't be an issue I mean the only mando role ability on my DRG I see is arms length for V4s and true north for those times the boss is just facing the party which both are situational lol

[Okamimaru]

Only ones I use on SAM regularly is invigorate and diversion...

[EllieShadeflare]

Mana Shift is pretty amazing if you're a Black Mage or a SMN (and otherwise swimming in MP) because you can save your healer from mana dehydration.

Though, it is sad that there's no straight up damage buffs for the DPS classes.

[RenOkamiya]

True north for melee is kind of a damage buff because you can do your best potencies from anywhere you like, getting debuffs/buffs from anywhere you like, if a mechanic demands to be in front of the boss for example. It's situational but I use it in every fight I think, just need a bit of timing/knowledge about the fight.

[Deceptus]

addle = more wyrmwave triggers = more dps

I would imagine this is going to be fixed sooner than later, it can't be intended.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

As others have said, the moment you place damage buffs in the role action slots, they become mandatory. Currently, I take...

Diversion
True North
Invigorate
Second Wind/Bloodbath/Goad/Feint
Arm's Length (only for Exdeath)

If you added Blood for Blood and Internal Release, I'll never remove them from Samurai.

[Mikazuki_Aura]

Break has a niche use for cases where healing takes out all of your mana, as it has no MP cost. The O4S solo healer run used Break for damage. Aside from that it is usually useless.
Drain is actually useless.
Arm's Length is virtually compulsory for O4S to negate Vacuum Wave. Depending on boss placement not bringing it varies from reducing DPS by quite a bit to instant death. It's also used in Demon Wall and Demon Book for melee uptime.
Crutch is virtually useless.

Damage-boosting abilities have largely been removed from the list as they used to be mandatory in the previous cross class system, which defeated the purpose of giving a choice when there's only one acceptable set of choices. The only remaining direct booster is Cleric Stance, and even that is only useful if Largesse is taken first as the GCD conversion of a heal to a damage spell weighs exponentially higher in DPS than 5% more on already-low potency attacks.

There are a couple of strange role skills like Drain, Crutch and Protect that should either never be used, or should be converted into always-on passives rather than taken as permanent choices, but for the most part the system is functional, and rewards swapping between skills to fit the encounter.

[Deceptus]

As others have said, the moment you place damage buffs in the role action slots, they become mandatory. Currently, I take...

Diversion
True North
Invigorate
Second Wind/Bloodbath/Goad/Feint
Arm's Length (only for Exdeath)

If you added Blood for Blood and Internal Release, I'll never remove them from Samurai.

Do you ever remove Diversion, True North or Invigorate? At that point, aren't they mandatory?