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

[Gamer3427]

I honestly don't get the problem with skill bloat that so many people seem to have. On my MCH in particular, I'm easily set to where I can manage another three expansions worth of skills by just adding one hotbar I can switch to and from with one button on my PS4. Maybe it's more of a PC problem?

As for the direction they'll take, since it's pretty clear they have no intent to actually buff MCH in terms of raw damage and instead have it more of a support role, I'd like to see some actual support skills on it. 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. Personally, I'd like to see a shielding turret, (I'd call it "Knight Autoturret"), that has 25% of the player's health and takes all damage in place of them while it's up, or in Promote mode provides a circular shield that protects for 5-10% damage while draining MP. Since we don't have any self healing, give us the option to trade off some DPS in an emergency for boosted defenses.....

[Connor]

Machinist stuff

Like I said in the 'BRD broke etc' thread, I do agree that regen abilities feel lacklustre as they don't see much use in a lot of content. I've always seen Machinist as being more focused on providing support through debuffing the enemy. I think building on this would be cool and help keep it somewhat different from Bards. Something like a turret focused on shielding is a great idea. Hypercharge could even have it provide a small regen to party members in range for its duration on top of damage reduction. Or they could add an ability that 'explodes' the turret and has it provide a debuff to enemies in range (maybe damage down or vulnerability up, maybe even something entirely unique?).