Class direction for 'support-oriented' classes (BRD, MCH, AST)?

[Warlyx]

FFXIV will never have full utility jobs , in a game where the full party is 8 with 4 slots for tanks healers leving only 4 for dmg...3 dps + supports needs to be better than 4 dps....or worse...so how u balanced that?..if u bring 1 support the pt is op/up....is a !$!$ mess , is no wonder the mmorpgs are avoiding full support jobs at most u gets half support half dps that no1 wants to play (see eq2 bards and enchanters)

[nickx]

FFXIV will never have full utility jobs , in a game where the full party is 8 with 4 slots for tanks healers leving only 4 for dmg...3 dps + supports needs to be better than 4 dps....or worse...so how u balanced that?..if u bring 1 support the pt is op/up....is a !$!$ mess , is no wonder the mmorpgs are avoiding full support jobs at most u gets half support half dps that no1 wants to play (see eq2 bards and enchanters)

Understandable, but I could see 1 support role in each party which could essentially empower the 3 other dps in the group to increase their damage significantly, or apply vulnerabilities to the boss, etc. A support job could even synergize with other jobs with their skills, such as having the ability to empower ninjutsu of ninjas, empower the jumps of dragoons, etc. I know it would require some balancing and job tweaks, but I personally would find it more interesting.

[Ashkendor]

Understandable, but I could see 1 support role in each party which could essentially empower the 3 other dps in the group to increase their damage significantly, or apply vulnerabilities to the boss, etc. A support job could even synergize with other jobs with their skills, such as having the ability to empower ninjutsu of ninjas, empower the jumps of dragoons, etc. I know it would require some balancing and job tweaks, but I personally would find it more interesting.

The problem with full support jobs is they almost always end up being either required or useless. It's really difficult to hit that middle ground where it's useful enough to take with you (i.e. it makes up for the loss of the 4th DPS) but not overpowered.

They've flat-out said in one of the Live Letters that there are no plans to include Support classes for this reason.

Right now we've got the MP/TP regen, and a couple of weak debuffs, but that's it. The regen in particular is rather useless if you have a competent group outside of doing chain-pulls or Savage, because practically every class has some skill they can use to regen their primary resource on their own.

If doing casual content in a casual manner (i.e. not speed pulling) is the bar to measure skill usefulness by, 90% of my kit is useless.

[Calypsx]

There is nothing wrong with a support role in this type of mmorpg. Rift has shown you can do it just fine, bard is super fun in that game.

It would require tweaking the current system quite a lot to implement though, that's where the actual problem lies. It all depends on if the dev wants to put the time into working it into the system but it's certainly not impossible.

[NoahArks]

I'll be honest. I think they should add a support role. I don't care what people think, if they're support classes then throw in a support role, don't throw them under dps.

[FoxyAreku]

It's doubtful anything new will happen. They seem to like limiting the 'support' of this game to just refilling resources.