Group-DPS buffs aren't real "Utility" or "Support"

[LeonKeyh]

The thing is, this is really the only place where such abilities would make a difference, and they can't give us abilities that would make a difference in Savage because then the community mindset would be to prioritize the job that has the difference-making ability to the exclusion of others when given a choice.

I mean, this pretty much nails the issue with that. Normal content is under tuned so much to be accessible to the most people possible. As a result, support skills like Monk's Mantra are nice to have, but if it's make or break then there are a lot of other issues that need to be dealt with.

Also, you're creating a really superficial definition of support, things that increase DPS are definitely support skills; more importantly, support skills which people will ALWAYS be happy to see at any time during any combat at any point in progression.

It definitely would be nice to see Peloton when cast in combat give a 5s run buff and start a 1m cooldown or something. That would be another nice support skill.

Overall though, other than that, "support skills" (even the stuff you mention) is just "Make Good Numbers Bigger" and/or "Make Bad Numbers Smaller." In that instance, there's no difference between the Dancer/Bard buffs and Monk's Mantra.

Edit: Also Also, if you're not careful with support/utility skills, you may end up taking a class and making it their identity (e.g. Rez Mage) and/or requiring the class to be there in certain circumstances. In general, support/utility balance lately has been more about rewarding people for bringing different classes for different ways of buffing DPS. For example, a crit buff on top of a +damage buff on top of a received damage debuff on the boss is exponentially better than 2-3 +damage buffs.