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

[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.