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

[Kemonologist]

Well, they are in a manner, though more so in eight player content with at least two casters. Namely because you can keep Foes up for a greatly extended period of time by having the MCH use MP regen, and that extended time on Foes means those casters can do a lot more damage, while the MCH switches turrets for their Hypercharged burst. Still not perfect by any means, but viable in a manner. It gets even more so if you have an AST feeding an MP card to the MCH or BRD every now and then. Came relatively close to clearing Faust in A1S using this method even with a relatively inexperienced Bard, only one caster, and a NIN who was pretty poor and who didn't have B4B.....

That is problem. People always count individual DPS but don't count how many DPS that support role bring to party.

[Kosmos992k]

I think it's fine as is. If you examine the skills of each class/job, you'll find debuffs againt targets, individual or party buffs, direct or indirect support. It's all there, it's up to the players to know their class/job well enough to use their buffs/debuffs to best advantage, which ones stack, which do not, and so on. We are all support classes to one extent or another, there is no pressing need for separate support jobs.

I'm always puzzled when people ask for support classes, or multi-player attack combos. If each of us just plays for their own goals in each encounter, things may not go so well. On the other hand if everyone intelligently applies and combimes their skils, support buffs and debuffs effectively far more damage will be mitigated and the party will deal far more damage. There is a lot of scope for working together to pull off what amount to unstructured combo attacks, if only people would pay attention.

Instead of a 'by the numbers' combo chain attack, we can build that using complimentary buffs and debuffs along with well timed burst damage.

What I would like to see is increased utility for everyone, not even more jobs with similar roles and a slightly different flavor. In a 4 or 8 man party there's really not room for a dedicated support role. Maybe in 24 man content where SE is balancing with only 1 tank, you might have room for more support bias, but even then we already have the jobs, we just need to play with attention to support rather than max dps.

[FoxyAreku]

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

[Catwho]

What they're trying to avoid is the situation they had in FFXI where every party wanted a bard. No, every party did not NEED a bard, but every party wanted one. To the point where bards ran around with /anon an all the time to avoid people begging them to join their party.

You think tanks are prima donnas in this game, us bards in XI were known as the "princesses." A good bard turned a good party into a great one, and even a mediocre bard would make a mediocre party into a good one.

As a bard in XI, I had very little offensive ability, but enough defensive stuff as a BRD/WHM or BRD/NIN that I could handle pulling full time as well as keeping the party greased with two songs (later on three and four songs.) Haste + Attack boost were the two preferred ones, although sometimes if the DPS was whiffing a lot I'd switch to Haste + Accuracy on their request. Mages got at least one Ballad to keep the MP flowing. The ideal party setup was NIN MNK SAM BRD RDM COR - NIN tank, MNK and SAM skillchaining the snot out of each other, COR giving buffs and an exp boost, BRD pulling, and RDM healing and buffing.

I'm very relieved that bard in XIV is much more low key and just another DPS. I like providing buffs, but I also feel I provide a lot more utility by doing good DPS, too.

[loreleidiangelo]

I'd hesitate to lump an AST or a PLD in with the likes of BRD/MCH simply because of the differing methods if their utility. PLD has an AOE 10% shield that they rely on someone else to proc and two spells that they're hard-pressed to actually get off without constantly being interrupted. AST has a plethora of different buffs but no real control over their use like BRD/MCH do.

Not saying that the discussion of how to implement future jobs with nifty utilities isn't fun, I'm just not sure PLD/AST can be considered "support" when one has extremely niche support and the other has support so unreliable it almost seems tacked on as an afterthought.

[Leigaon]

It seems like at the beginning they tried to make each job do their primary roles while at the same time give the ability to enhance or debuff a mob to an extent. Bard seemed to have more of a larger AoE ability than the rest. I stopped bard in 1.0 but am trying to pick it up again.

It seems a bit messy but I think they have two options to do things with. One is to increase the enfeeblement and party enhancing abilities of the other jobs to continue along the lines of support for each job/class. Or create that extra slot and add in a support role with BRD and MCH enhancing support while supplying some DPS. It would mean an extra party slot. I only say that because I've gotten into very very rare parties where we had a 5th member..and we rolled with it. I'm not on my PC at home but I sure hope I can find it, I took a picture.

I think either would be an okay idea, but I think the first option would be the easiest. For example, looking at Lancer/DRG, they could take Feint and make it off global, reduce the potency and increase the duration of slow. Increase Keen Flurry to a party AoE, it wouldn't be major but for an add phase parrying some type of HP would be interesting. Then they have Battle Litany which is wonderful in itself.

Then again if they do something like a DPS / Support class slot, they could easily do a skill tree like others suggested to an extent but maybe in terms of Merit Points so they can enhance their abilities as needed. Maybe Enhanced Ballad to give also an AoE magic accuracy buff.

I loved my role as a bard in XI, I enjoyed 1.0 also. I am starting it now in 3.0 and so far I do not see me using any of my songs so much but maybe that's because I eat up a DPS role. If they did add that extra slot but didn't make it pure support..even though Yoshi said there wasn't going to be a dedicated support, wouldn't have to be like XI Bard, could be a lesser DPS hybrid. I'm not sure which would be easier to do now that I'm thinking about it...so much to take in.

[Connor]

I'd hesitate to lump an AST or a PLD in with the likes of BRD/MCH simply because of the differing methods if their utility. PLD has an AOE 10% shield that they rely on someone else to proc and two spells that they're hard-pressed to actually get off without constantly being interrupted. AST has a plethora of different buffs but no real control over their use like BRD/MCH do.

Not saying that the discussion of how to implement future jobs with nifty utilities isn't fun, I'm just not sure PLD/AST can be considered "support" when one has extremely niche support and the other has support so unreliable it almost seems tacked on as an afterthought.

I get what you mean, and I do realize lumping AST/PLD with BRD/MCH is pretty strange. What I meant is that they're both classes that lose out on something to balance their utility (Paladin has high defense and utility in exchange for lower dps, Astrologian has cards in exchange for less raw healing potency than Scholar / White Mage). There's a sort of parallel between how AST/PLD are designed and the way BRD/MCH are designed with more utility, less dps/healing (though that's obviously a super simplistic description). As far as I'm aware you could even consider Ninja in this category now I think?

[Connor]

Also, I don't want people to get the wrong idea about the topic of this thread. Like I mentioned before, this thread wasn't a call for full-support classes as I'm well aware they can't and won't be implemented for a variety of reasons. There are still a variety of ways further utility can be added to 'utility' classes whilst still keeping them as dps-heavy as they are now though, or perhaps making them less dps-heavy and more utility heavy in a way that doesn't break balance (i.e making Bard/Machinist/etc required for specific content). The purpose was to see what suggestions people had for future abilities / traits / etc for 'support' classes as they exist in the game currently and what people would like to see (e.g more support but less dps, more dps but less support etc).