support jobs

[Morticous]

Wouldn't be hard to do, 4 man's become 5 man's with a slot specific to support added. 8 becomes 10, 24 to 30.

Actually the way I see it.. only the 4 man would have to change to 5 man. 8 man would be modified to be 1support/3dd/2heal/2tank and so on.

[Acala]

Wouldn't be hard to do, 4 man's become 5 man's with a slot specific to support added. 8 becomes 10, 24 to 30.

This would be extremely hard to do. Everything would have to be re-tuned to make you need a support or ppl with just say fck it, run 3 dps, and zerg all things down. I mean seriously why would you want to take someone that makes eveyrones dps a bit higher when you could just take some that probably does more then that combined increase. Not to mention it could only really hope to have the popularity of say a tank... maybe healer if the community is lucky meaning that now you have even longer wait times to fill that and the tank slot. enjoy hr waits consistently dps, because lets face it this is probably gona pull more players from healer role then dps.

[Deedsie]

Red mage = Healer & small Debuff capabilities = Healer Role

Hells no. Swordplay and black magic, two of the three things Red Mage is capable of is meant for killing, not healing. You're asking for a healer role when that's only 1/3 of what it does?

[Balfreid]

So... what I got out of this thread was "I am too lazy to play a DPS class and actually DO a rotation, so I want a support class to play so I can click two buttons then afk"

[LunarEmerald]

WTB time mage with buffs, debufs, and gravity dps spells.

gravity, demi? You can't have demi with bosses.

[Gamemako]

I think the Support jobs can work, if they share Slot in the duty finder with DPS.

Absolutely not. They are unbalanceable if they share slots with DPS. To implement a support job, you must implement a complete support role independent of DPS roles and force players to use standard composition (Tank/2xDPS/Support/Heal) for every piece of content. Support jobs are inherently overpowered in larger parties and inherently underpowered in small parties. Consider these scenarios:

Let's say you have a DPS-support type job, which are easier to balance but still broken. Deals 70% of normal DPS damage, but buffs party by 10%.

5 players, healer DPS at zero, tank DPS at 50%, support DPS at 70%, dedicated DPS at 100%, support buff of 10% DPS
3 DPS: 350%
2 DPS 1 support: 352%
1 DPS 2 support: 348%
3 support: 338%

-> 1 support is fine, 2 is fine, 3 is bad. Support is mostly OK here, right?

Now at 10 players, same rules
6 DPS: 700%
5 DPS, 1 support: 737%
4 DPS, 2 support: 768%
3 DPS, 3 support: 793%
2 DPS, 4 support: 812%
1 DPS, 5 support: 825%
6 support: 832%

-> More support, more damage.

What looks balanced in 4-player content is overpowered in 8-player content. It's even worse if you make it more dedicated. Consider 50% of normal DPS with 20% buff:

5 players, healer DPS at zero, tank DPS at 50%, support DPS at 50%, dedicated DPS at 100%, support buff of 20% DPS
3 DPS: 350%
2 DPS 1 support: 360%
1 DPS 2 support: 350%
3 support: 320%

-> 1 support is optimal, 3 support is bad. Still not too bad balance-wise.

Now at 10 players, same rules
6 DPS: 700%
5 DPS, 1 support: 780%
4 DPS, 2 support: 840%
3 DPS, 3 support: 880%
2 DPS, 4 support: 900%
1 DPS, 5 support: 900%
6 support: 880%

-> Spirals out of control

The more support-heavy it gets, the more jacked your balance gets. In order to balance the jobs in general, you have to put a hard limits on party composition. Moreover, non-DPS support is either essential or useless.

[mythicrose]

gravity, demi? You can't have demi with bosses.

They'd just be reworked to X potency spells with a graphic. Probably adding "heavy" to targets where applicable.

[Teratel]

I can see your point with the unbalanced nature as the groups get bigger, but one thing you are probably forgetting about is cast times and cooldowns. If buffs are done on an individual basis, buffs can wear off or have cooldowns which limit the amount of buffing a single support role can do. Also, if there are so many support classes, buffs and debuffs will not necessarily stack effects so you are losing that 20% buff potential dps for each excessive support class you bring in. I don't think it would be quite as unbalanced as your math suggests.

[Silvanoshi]

I can see your point with the unbalanced nature as the groups get bigger, but one thing you are probably forgetting about is cast times and cooldowns. If buffs are done on an individual basis, buffs can wear off or have cooldowns which limit the amount of buffing a single support role can do. Also, if there are so many support classes, buffs and debuffs will not necessarily stack effects so you are losing that 20% buff potential dps for each excessive support class you bring in. I don't think it would be quite as unbalanced as your math suggests.

I have to agree! For example --- Haste, even if its group wide, will only be useful if it's being applied to heavy hitting DPS classes. I doubt haste would stack, either. In this situation, you would want 1 support doing haste and the other doing something else.

[Nicobo]

Archer should split into BARD and Ranger... Bard as we know it today should be renamed to Ranger and remain as DPS while Bard becomes a true support job like it always has been before this game. All songs except possibly the speed song will be moved over to BARD and then replaced with something else.

I don't understand why except the speed song? Suppose a ranger has no instrument with him, why should be an exception? ^^;
I think your idea should adjust to:
Bard as we know it today, and add Ranger which is a pure range-DPS job like it always has been before this game.