True Support Class even possible...

[Kewitt]

Depend on how much support the support class can bring.

Personally I think 4 party content would need to be retweaked for 5 party content.

[Zourin]

WoW tried a 'support' class with the release-day Paladin and Shaman. That setup was inevitably burned to the ground by the church of the Holy Trinity within a year or two.

However, I'm not a stuck-up zealot when it comes down to what others would consider sacriligious to raid-class MMO gameplay (totally disregarding the pretender freemiums), but NOBODY has ever done a support class that can hold its own against the big three. Buffs are all too often mediocre if not downright pittances. Bosses are generally outright immune to control abilities. Nobody has really gotten a 'support' role right where the DPS IS the support role. They make things die faster, resulting in shorter dungeon turnarounds, less damage done to the tank, and less pressure on the healers.

So unless a 'support' class can be a force multiplier, even on boss fights, then the idea is just another stillbirthed brick expanding the foundation of the Holy Trinity.

The current class system is engineered on this foundation. You have two tank jobs, two healer jobs, five DPS, and the bard who is the closest thing to a support class that the game can allow while calling it a 'dps' class.

Do you think people, unless forced by game design (and I wouldn't put past Yoshi to all but schedule our play time for us), would willingly 'take more time' to do dungeon runs to carry a support class through? The bard gets away with it by at least being a reasonably mobile damage dealer in this increasingly boring game of red shapes.

[Iecerint]

FFXI had BRD and COR...it's not like they'd have to look far for inspiration....

[Zourin]

FFXI had BRD and COR...it's not like they'd have to look far for inspiration....

No, they'd just have to look for a reason to give for anyone to care. And we already have BRDs, and we have plenty of DPS's already sitting around getting Pizza delivered before the dungeon finder pops.

[Nysneirdre]

That is what bards do now . . . how are they not support?

The bard is a hybrid class not a true support class. Some examples of true support classes from others games are a Bard from Rift Online, Minstrel / Bard / Skald from Dark Age of Camelot, Captain from Lotro.

Also with the subject of the OP, I don't think its possible for a true support type class in this game with the basic group build being 4 people and with the current content built towards 1 tank, 1 healer, two dps. If we see more support type abilities in the future, it will be like the bard. A dps class with some minor raid type short duration buffs.

[RynaultB]

No, they'd just have to look for a reason to give for anyone to care. And we already have BRDs, and we have plenty of DPS's already sitting around getting Pizza delivered before the dungeon finder pops.

BRDs in FFXI were complete support, not sure if you played it any. Rarely, would you see a BRD in FFXI attack anything with a weapon they usually just sung songs an entire fight.

NOBODY has ever done a support class that can hold its own against the big three.

Again, I guess you never played FFXI, if you did you where terribly sheltered. Having a BRD in your group usually meant burning through things a lot faster than without. Can't tell you how many times people wouldn't do things in FFXI without having a BRD in the party with them.

Having a BRD in the group made things easy mode a lot of the time.

To elaborate for those that didn't hear about it, he mentioned it in the context of hybridizing class roles. So the "Hybrid" would hybridize Tank/Healer (pllllllzzzzzzz), Tank/DPS, or Healer/DPS. (e.g. not based on classes, like a WAR/PLD hybrid, or BRD/BLM, etc.) Or so one would assume.

I think I worded that confusingly. He said it like there were new classes that were going to hybridize Tank/Healer/DPS, not an opportunity to hybridize current classes.

PLDs in the traditional sense is a Hybrid, like how they were back in 1.0. But Yoshi changed that come ARR they can't heal hardly at all like they used to, holy succor was an amazing ability.

BRD in ARR is a bad example of a support role in a party. Hardly am I ever asked to sing songs in a fight unless the healer burns through their MP pool spamming heals. BRDs were better as a support role back in 1.0 when they could run around and put songs on everyone and then go back to DDing.

None of this you sing while you fight and your damage is reduced by 20% while your singing.

I'm not a Barbarian singing to Tempus while fighting. I sing to inspire people to perform better which is how songs should work in the game, like how they were in 1.0. (I understand the concept of reducing your damage while singing as you can't focus 100% to do damage because of singing. I just think the mechanic is silly =) I preferred the previous system they had in place.)

I enjoy ARR but there were somethings I liked about 1.0 that I wish they had kept.

[Feilina]

Obviously some of you didn't play LotrO. They had 3 support classes (Captain, Burgler, Loremaster) BUT their group seize was 6!

What happened to them you may ask?!? Community...

Some playing Loremaster thought its been a mage-style class, they couldn't have been more wrong on that. They thought the burgler was a dps class, ...
Over time Turbine changed the system. Supporters got more and more dps and de-/ buffs got less complex. Even CC got more and more unnessesary.

[zdub303]

Everquest had some pretty sweet support roles. I remember you couldn't have a group without an enchanter for haste and slow. Really interesting and fun dynamic no doubt.

Rift had a support class when i played it, Archon I think it was? It was mandatory in every raid comp. Then they tried to force support on the 5 man group composition and in the end everyone queued support and then swapped into their dps class right away and violently chastised for trying to actually support.

Support classes are, as already said, force multipliers. WoW completely ruined the idea of the support class by giving support essentially no tools or abilities to actually make the raid function better. Support has a place in 'Holy Trinity' MMOs, but it has absolutely no place in group sizes less than 5 (6 is ideal imho - 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps, 1 support). Otherwise the support aspect cannot compete with direct damage when there are no group members to support, forcing most groups to discard support classes in favor of additional raw dps.

In a full party? Maybe... 2 tank, 2 heals, 3 dps, 1 hybrid-support. It just ends up like Bard at that point though... a crappy dps with a few songs. If archer ever gets a true dps job, I feel like bard will become largely obsolete. Unless your healers need mana song or you are stacked with casters groups would probably prefer pure dps over bards current form.

Support classes have a place in MMOs and can be an exciting and engaging role to play for many people. However, in WoW and its clones (including FFXIV) I don't think we'll ever see any true support. Just raw dps and subpar dps with some group-wide supporty abilities.

[Duelle]

WoW tried a 'support' class with the release-day Paladin and Shaman. That setup was inevitably burned to the ground by the church of the Holy Trinity within a year or two.

A large part of that came from the people who were pissed off for being sold a master of the elements (shaman) or a light-touched knight with holy powers (paladins) only to find they were buffbots or gimped healers with little other use in endgame. Even in burning crusade the devs were hesistant to buff either and instead fell back on clutch buffs to try to justify those classes' raid spots (which pretty much blew up in their faces when non-healing specs for both were sat in favor of bringing a real DPS in that spot).

You effectively had two very popular classes that contained a large portion of pissed off people who felt bait and switched.

However, I'm not a stuck-up zealot when it comes down to what others would consider sacriligious to raid-class MMO gameplay (totally disregarding the pretender freemiums), but NOBODY has ever done a support class that can hold its own against the big three. Buffs are all too often mediocre if not downright pittances.

It's hit both extremes. Your support was either mediocre and better replaced by a DPS, or so powerful it was outright required for everything in the game because the encounters were balanced around the presence of said support. When developers took aspects of support and blended them into the trinity, it was a breath of fresh air (because it increased diversity and flavor in tank, heals and DPS) while also dealing with the problem of making support aspects fit into the game without borking party dynamics and overall balance. There's a reason I was happy to see design in the last couple of years phase "support" out of the picture in favor of baking aspects of support on the holy trinity. It is much more solid design and gives the involved classes a little more flavor.

FFXI had BRD and COR...it's not like they'd have to look far for inspiration....

One was mandatory but no one liked to play it, the other was relegated to cure-botting with token gunshots via Light Shot because SE was boneheaded enough to make COR ammo difficult and very expensive to obtain. That's not what I would call a winning formula.

[Alkar]

Well.. no one is requesting songs from BRDs because you're the one in charge. If you have BLM/SMN in the party and you're not keeping up Requiem for them you're doing it wrong. The only song that is rarely used is Paeon and only because we're not allowed to see our party's TP bars. I'm always singing when it's necessary on BRD removing the buff whenever a DPS check phase is coming up for obvious reasons.