Done with FFXIV until RDM comes along...

[Deusteele]

And thusly Kuwagami brings us unto the Bizzaro MMO-world; Where players like to do inefficient actions for the sake of the community.

Now to put some background to that. I know where you are coming from, I do understand your arguments, because I used to have the same ideas. But when I moved up into harder raiding and started to watch the top guilds; reading their blogs and watching streams, I learned a single solitary fact.

MMO Players are not gamers in the normal sense. We don't play games, we play spreadsheets with a very pretty GUI.

What does this have to do with Support classes? The top level players spend a exorbitant amount of time doing theory-crafting, so much that "hardcore" players may spend more time outside the game theory-crafting then a "casual" player may spend just having fun in game. This math determines how they play the game. This in turn effects game balance on the meta-level. Look no further then how quickly Ramuh-Ex with Titan-Egi was embraced by the community. This creates a host of issues that we have seen on these very boards.

If they increase damage done by a greater number then the dps role that they filling, they are mandatory.
If they fail to increase the damage done by a greater amount then the dps role they are filling, they are benched
If they reduce damage taken by a great amount then a healer can heal, they are mandatory.
If the cannot reduce damage by a sufficient amount to reduce the numbers of healers, they are benched.
If they can do both, they are mandatory.
If they fail at both, they are benched.

The moment a Support job breaks one of the conditions I set, it comes mandatory or abandoned.

It is a binary view because it's a binary decision. Either a job is taken to a raid or it has to ride pine. You cannot take part of job to raid and leave some of it behind, it's all or nothing.

I know my chances of convincing the OP and others are slim. I accept this.

[Duelle]

What does this have to do with Support classes? The top level players spend a exorbitant amount of time doing theory-crafting, so much that "hardcore" players may spend more time outside the game theory-crafting then a "casual" player may spend just having fun in game. This math determines how they play the game. This in turn effects game balance on the meta-level. Look no further then how quickly Ramuh-Ex with Titan-Egi was embraced by the community. This creates a host of issues that we have seen on these very boards.

This is the sad truth of MMO design. And yes, Titan-egi was embraced because it allowed people to not deal with one of Ramuh's mechanics; instead of seeing it for the broken tactic that it was people tried to defend it either because they wanted to stick it to tank players or because they were being of the cool alternative crowd that doesn't follow intended design, man.

As far as support, the funny thing about your conditions is that support ALWAYS breaks one of them. To make a mezzer worthwhile it has to be able to notably hinder raid bosses; likewise if the mezzer is not overly effective it gets benched. If you make a mana battery they instantly become mandatory, especially when mana/MP is a tight commodity (nevermind the ruination it brings to the class involved). You can't build a support entirely out of regens/HoTs, which then leads to them touching the two aforementioned aspects. And god help you if the support is designed around spammable buffs; you're either mandatory because your buffs make that much of a difference or are useless because your buffs don't make enough of a difference. From a design perspective its an absolute balancing nightmare. That's not even getting into who gets pigeonholed into that role.